than the Ville Close, and where all the business of the place is carried
on. The sardine fishery, from June to November, occupies two-thirds of the
population. From three to four hundred vessels are employed with five men
to each boat. Calm weather is most favourable for fishing. The sardines
are taken in large seine nets, one side floating with corks on the surface
of the water, the other falling vertically. The sardines, attracted by the
bait, try to force themselves through the meshes of the net, and are
caught by their gills. The bait used is called "rogue:" the best is
composed of the roe of the cod-fish, pounded and steeped in salt water for
several days; sometimes the roe and flesh of the mackerel is used. Rogue
is made in Norway and Denmark, but principally at Drontheim, and is very
expensive, costing about sixpence the lb.; hence an inferior bait is
substituted, composed of shrimps and other small crustacea, with fish
salted, and the heads of anchovies, all pounded and putrified together.
But this kind of decomposed bait is forbidden by the fishery laws. The
employment of it accounts for the rareness of good sardines, as the
remaining of such a substance in the body of the animal cannot fail of
corrupting it. It is a pretty sight to behold the little fleet employed in
the sardine fishery return in the evening, laden with the results of the
day's work. The fish, when landed, are counted out into baskets, shaken in
the water, and taken up to one of the curing-houses: of these there are
about sixty in Concarneau. In the first shed we saw above fifty women
employed in taking off their heads--"deteter" it is called--an operation
they effect with great dexterity. With one cut at the back of the neck the
head is separated and the fish "eventre" at the same time.

The sardines are next placed in little wire trays, with divisions like a
double gridiron, and fried or dipped in boiling oil, an operation
principally performed by the women of Pont l'Abbe, who are supposed, like
the Germans of our baking and sugar-refining houses, to be peculiarly
constituted to resist heat. The gridirons are then hung up to drain. The
sardines are next packed in tin boxes, cold oil poured over them, and the
boxes soldered down. From 800 to 900 boxes are placed in a boiler and
boiled for half an hour to test the boxes, and those which leak are put
aside. They are of English tin, and the making of them is the winter's
occupation. Finally, the