CLUPEA IIARENGIS. 243 



herrings, which, when thus prepared and dried, receive the 

 appellation of red-herrings. 



The Dutch are most expert in pickling these fish, and 

 for that purpose they take them about the middle of sum- 

 mer. Their usual method of procedure is as follows: as 

 soon as the herrings are liberated from the nets, they are 

 gutted and washed; then they are put into strong brine, 

 made of water and sea-salt, for fifteen hours ; after which 

 they are taken out, well drained, and regularly disposed 

 into barrels, with a layer of salt at the bottom of each, and 

 another at the top. Care is likewise taken that no air be 

 admitted, nor the brine suffered to leak, either of which 

 would be injurious to the preservation of the fish. 



The following article illustrates to a certain extent Mr. 

 Mudie's theory, which I have had occasion to condemn ; 

 however, as the talented author has stated a fact, it is but 

 right to give Mr. Mudie the- benefit of it — in many other 

 points, however, it is highly interesting to the general and 

 scientific reader, therefore I have much pleasure in insert- 

 ing it. 



Observations connected with the migration of the herring and mackerel, 

 as noticed in the British Channel, by Major IV. M. Morrison. 



Hastings, from its peculiar situation, is well situated for a fishing station, 

 and has in consequence for a considerable period employed many vessels 

 in this particular branch of commerce ; each vessel is furnished with from 

 one hundred to one hundred and twenty nets, each net being forty feet in 

 length. They can be joined to each other with great facility, and, when 

 in the sea, present a curtain from fourteen to sixteen feet in depth. These 

 the fishermen, when at any distance from the land, always shoot or place 

 north and south, or as near that direction as can be done conveniently, in 

 order that they may drift with the flowing and ebbing of the tide, which 

 takes the direction of east and west in this part of the British Channel. I 

 have particularly noticed this latter circumstance, both attached to the 

 capture of the herring and the mackerel, which is, that those fish encum- 

 bered with roes, while caught in great numbers on the east side of the 

 nets, are not met with in a greater proportion than one in about one 

 hundred without roes on the west side, a fact which affords evidence that 



R 2 



