326 THE LABKADOK TEXIXSULA. CHAP. x.x. 



came out lie smelt very like a loon or a seal, and I had 

 strong suspicions that he partook of both those delicacies, 

 which however did not seem to lessen his appetite for 

 some very fine beaver tail, which we enjoyed at one of 

 the fishing stores. 



In the afternoon of this day, after having visited Pere 

 Arnaud, I went to examine an extensive herring fishery 

 made of branches of trees, and called a brush fishery. 

 It is constructed of stakes about eight feet in length, which 

 are driven into the sand, commencing at high-water mark 

 and extending about one hundred yards into the sea. 

 The stakes are interwoven with branches of spruce, so 

 closely that even a fish as small as a caplin cannot pass 

 through the interstices. 



At the extremity of this barrier is the pound, seventy 

 yards in diameter, and in the form of a circle, with two 

 openings, called doors, about four feet broad at the ex- 

 tremity of the barrier. From each side of the pound 

 two wings extend to direct the fish towards the door of 

 the pound, when the shoals of herring pass along the 

 shores of the bay. When a shoal finds its way into the 

 pound, the doors are closed with a hurdle and the fish 

 scooped out or caught in small nets. 



The herring (Clupea harengus) is found in infinite 

 numbers along the coasts of North America, from the 

 latitude of New York to Hudson's Bay. 



The herring inhabiting the seas on the coasts of Eng- 

 land, Ireland, and Scotland, differs from the American 

 species; it is shorter and smaller than that which is 

 taken off the coast of Labrador, and it is said to taste 

 better. 



