Page:The Cornwall coast.djvu/251

 ST. IVES 245 sometimes, however, scared away by the more powerful gannets, with whom they dare not dis- pute. At times the gulls are a distinct nuisance and something more to the jfisherman ; they will snatch fish from his very boat, and the constant loss must be very considerable ; yet there is a superstitious idea that the gull is the fisherman's friend— an idea in which we might rejoice more if it led the men to be equally humane towards other living creatures. The same mercy is by no means shown to the gannet. But a more serious enemy of the men is the dogfish, who tear their nets ; and the fishers are taking their revenge by trying to popularise this fish as an article of food, under the name of the " flake." Besides the prevalent fishing with seines, there is much drift- fishing from St. Ives, taking place at night ; the boats being dotted about within and outside the bay, with their headlights showing like twinkling stars. The St. Ives men are not dependent on pilchards only, happily for them ; in winter their seines take many mullet, which are mostly sent to Paris. The shore-seine used for these is com- paratively small ; it is coiled and passed round the school, and the two ends then drawn ashore. Here, as elsewhere, the men are usually parcelled into companies — a kind of limited share-company ; they take turns in shooting the nets, and profits are shared. The control of affairs by husband and wife is a different sort of share-company ; the wife is supreme mistress at home, but the man becomes " boss " as soon as he gets his sea-boots on. Many mackerel are often brought to St. Ives, and the men go still further afield after herring ; but somehow the catch of the pilchard seems the most distinctively local feature, and the fish, once