CLUPEIDiE. 215 



ice may likewise be employed for this purpose. The fish first removed are the 

 most valuable, as having been subjected to less pressure and a purer atmosphere. 

 As a rule when the sea is calm and the temperature high, the takes become more 

 or less spoiled before they can be landed ; in some places the use of steamers has 

 obviated this, and communications between the fishing fleet and the shore may 

 be maintained, as at Montrose, by the employment of carrier pigeons. If the 

 steamers were furnished with a double set of gear so that the tanks containing the 

 captured fish could be removed at once and fresh ones substituted, a tide would be 

 gained to the manifest advantage of the fisheries, as the steamers could at once 

 return to the fishing fleets. M. De Caux has given it as his opinion that the 

 alterations in the fishery laws have been so mischievous that now, although the 

 killing powers of drifters in the same district (Yarmouth) have increased six-fold, 

 the quantity of herrings captured has augmented but slightly, even if it has at all. 



On the Devonshire and Cornish coasts drift nets and moored nets in the bays 

 are employed occasionally up to the end of February ; even as late as the middle 

 of March, 1882, small boats were still capturing them with drift nets off Plymouth, 

 but the moored nets had been laid up until the next season. 



Along the Cornish coast there is no special fishery in the spring for herrings ; 

 some stragglers are taken in the mackeral nets and subsequently in the drift nets 

 employed fishing for the early shoals of pilchards in July and August, when they 

 are chiefly found in deep water. Boats from Mount's Bay, Cornwall and St. Ivea 

 leave for the Irish shores about the first week in June and rendezvous at Howth to 

 the north of Dublin Bay, where the best fishing is about the last week in June or 

 the first week in July ; subsequently it generally decreases and the boats go north. 



Herring fishing may frequently have to be suspended, or even entirely given 

 up, due to stormy weather preventing fishermen from venturing out to sea. In 

 1880, the Scotch fishermen had a most successful year, but it was remarkable 

 that the greatest amount of success attended the efforts of the drift-net boats. 

 The trawl-net boats were continually coming in clean, and, with rare exceptions, 

 were very poorly fished until the recent cold, frosty weather set in, when some 

 splendid takes were secured, yielding to each crew for one night's fishing from 

 100 to 200. Such a marked difference between the two modes of fishing has 

 never been observed before, and as yet no real cause has been assigned for it. 



The " dand} r -line " is used in herring fishing at Peterhead, during April, May, 

 and June. A piece of lead about 1^ lb. in weight is attached to a line, which 

 carries at short intervals transverse pieces of whalebone or cane, having unbaited 

 hooks at either end. Herrings are such hungry fish that they fly at the naked 

 hooks and are easily caught in this manner (Anglers' Note-book, p. 48). The 

 hooks must be kept moving about and the water should be a little discoloured. 



Along the coasts of Down and Antrim, large quantities used to be taken by 

 means of hand-lines. The hooks being dressed with feathers, and the time of fishing 

 being evening or sunrise (Thompson). Neill remarked that off the Scotch coast 

 they were often taken on hooks baited with limpets. 



Off Northumberland and Durham, we are told that herrings used only to 

 be fished when in their prime, or from July to September : now from 100 

 to 150 large boats come from Scotland every spring, and young herrings are 

 captured from May right on, but they are poor and tasteless (G. Bo well, Land and 

 Water, July, 1881). Mr. Southwell, off Norfolk, considers that there can be no 

 two opinions as to the small size and inferior quality of the " spring herrings," 

 and thinks that it is a matter of regret that they should be taken at that season. 



Superstition enters largely into the composition of fishermen, and in the Banff 

 Journal of 1855, it was recorded that the herring fishery being very backward, 

 some of the fishermen of Buckie dressed a cooper in a flannel shirt, with bars 

 stuck all over it, and in this condition he was carried in procession through the 

 town in a hand-barrow. This was done to bring "better luck" to the fishing. 

 A century or two ago not merely effigies, but living men and women, were burnt 

 on suspicion of casting a blight on the herring-fishery ; even at the present day it 

 is common for whale-fishers to burn an effigy in order to " bring luck." If a ship 

 has fallen in with few whales, the crew attribute their bad fortune to having some 



