NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 241 



depth of several feet, and salt and casks failed the packers. The 

 residue was carried away for manure by the farmers in the 

 neighbourhood. Strange to say, however, they again left the 

 frith in a single night, and no shoals again made their appearance 

 for more than half a century." 



Again, at "Loch Boag, a considerable arm of the sea in Lewis 

 Island; before the middle of the eighteenth century, this loch was 

 well known for its herring, they being considered of good quality. 

 About 1750 the herring left it, and seem not to have returned 

 till about 1790, when for a series of years thereafter there was a 

 very regular fishing during tlie months of November, December, 

 and January. In 1797 the herrings discontinued their visits; but 

 after the lapse of thirty-two years they returned in the autumn 

 of 1829 in considerable quantities, and in late years the fishing 

 has been frequently abundant." {Stat. Account of Scotland, vol. 

 xix., p. 252; Phil. Journal, No. 15, 1830.) 



This season, on the evening of the 26th of June, I went out 

 with a party to fish herring with a line in the bay of Crinan. 

 Our boat might only be about fifteen or sixteen feet keel; one 

 of the party rowed the boat, while four fished with one line each. 

 The tackle is constructed by having a thick wire, about two feet 

 long, with a piece of lead at the lower end to sink it in the water, 

 and an eye on the upper end to attach the line to, with two wires 

 or pieces of whalebone a foot or so long, fastened by the middle 

 across each other to the upright wire, from which they stand out 

 in four rays at right angles, and other two tiers are repeated in 

 the same way, one above the other about eight inches apart. 

 From each end of the cross wires or rays, a short line with a hook 

 is attached, which comes a little short of the tier next to it, but 

 on the hooks neither htxit nor fly is placed — it is more a kind of 

 grappling apparatus than line-fishing gear. This is let down 

 over the side of the boat where herring are expected to be, and, 

 at various depths, is jerked up and down, and if it gets among a 

 shoal of herring, they appear to be readily caught on the hooks, 

 sometimes by one part and sometimes by another. Occasionally 

 the hooks come up nearly or wholly filled; at other times with 

 one, +W0, three, or four, and so on; always when there is most on, 

 they are soonest on, and then the sport becomes "fast and furious." 

 In the hurry to get oflf the fish the hooks are often roughly 

 handled, and not unfrequently broken, and sometimes the tackle 



