242 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



is again heaved overboard before it is entirely cleared of the iish 

 that are upon it, while some of the lines are bare of hooks alto- 

 gether before time is spared to replace them. This arises from 

 the uncertainty of the movements of the herring. They may be 

 got for a few minutes as fast as they can be taken, and immedi- 

 ately afterwards not one is felt; hence the eagerness to " make hay 

 while the sun shines." 



This mode of fishing is advantageous when a few boats are out 

 at the same time. They are less liable to lose the shoal, because 

 when one boat is seen taking fish plentifully, other boats not 

 having the same fortune gather near to it, and by this means they 

 are enabled to track and keep longer on the shoal. The take was 

 expected to last only during twilight. We were on the station 

 from half-past eight till near eleven. The fish were met with 

 plentifully from nine till a little past ten, and at various depths, 

 from near the surface to seven or eight fathoms. Our take was 

 within three or four of three hundred. But the part that bears 

 most on our subject is the result of two boats trawling in the bay 

 at the same time. Although all the boats that Avere fishing with 

 tlie lines were successful, and tliere might be about a dozen, the 

 trawlers had but a few over three hundred between them. The 

 fishermen ruefully expressed their inability to understand it, as 

 the herring were round them in great abundance. 



Captain Kerr, who had been long connected with the herring 

 fishery, related to me the following singular trait in the habits of 

 that fish, which seems to bear in some degree on the above case: — 

 On one occasion, when the net was hanging perpendicularly down, 

 a large shoal of herring came within a few inches of it, but not 

 one struck — that is, in the fisherman's phrase, not one came in 

 contact with the net, all remaining for a time stationary a few 

 inches from it ; and so straight and regular was the wall of herring 

 noses, as far as could be seen down, that it could have been 

 fancied that each was kept in its place by some unseen agency. 



That different shoals of herring frequent the same ground at 

 diff"erent seasons, we may, I think, reasonably infer from the follow- 

 ing statement by Mr Mitchell. In criticising some remarks of 

 Professor Valenciennes of Paris, he says: — "It is true that the 

 herring fished in Avinter or the end or beginning of the year on the 

 coast of Norway are very large in size, and that some are 13^ 

 inches in length, but in summer large shoals of another description 



