fishery. This delicious little fish, which the _gourmands_ of Paris so
much delight in, when preserved in oil, and sent to their capital in
those little tin boxes whose look must be _familiar to all who have
frequented the Parisian breakfast-houses_" [but is now more familiar
to all who have entered any grocers shop throughout the length and
breadth of England], "is still more exquisite when eaten fresh on the
shores which it frequents. They are caught in immense quantities along
the whole of the southern coast of Brittany, and on the western shore
of Finisterre as far to the northward as Brest, which, I believe, is
the northern limit of the fishery. They come into season about the
middle of June, and are then sold in great quantities in all the
markets of southern Brittany at two, three, or four sous a dozen,
according to the abundance of the fishery and the distance of the
market from the coast. I was told that the commerce in sardines along
the coast from l'Orient to Brest amounted to three millions of francs
annually."

At the present day it must be enormously larger. I remember well the
exceeding plentifulness of the little fishes--none of them so large as
many of those which now fill the so-called sardine boxes--when I was
at Douarnenez in 1839. All the men, women, and children in the place
seemed to be feasting upon them all day long. Plates with heaps of
them fried and piled up crosswise, like timber in a timber-yard, were
to be seen outdoors and indoors, wherever three or four people could
be found together. All this was a thing of the past when I revisited
Douarnenez in 1866. Every fish was then needed for the tinning
business. They were to be had of course by ordering and paying for
them, but very few indeed were consumed by the population of the
place.