282 THE^SEAS 



workers on land, chief among which are the Scottish fisher 

 girls. While the fishermen are moving round from port 

 to port following the appearance of the spawning herring 

 in each locality from north to south in turn, the fisher girls 

 are following the fleet on land. 



In October, Yarmouth, whose streets were thronged a 

 month before with holiday makers, becomes crowded anew 

 with these Scottish girls. Here they work all day cleaning 

 and gutting the herring harvest with razor-sharp knives 

 wielded in their dexterous hands. Like a flash the cut is 

 made and the fish ready for preserving, and so they carry 

 on all day, while others are employed in salting, packing, 

 tending the nets and other multifarious tasks. 



The value of herring landed in England alone in the year 

 1924 was about four and a half million pounds. The total 

 value of the herring fisheries of all the nations of Northern 

 and Western Europe was nearly ten million pounds, or a 

 little under a quarter of the value of the whole sea fisheries. 

 Expressed in weight this means that out of the two and a 

 half million tons of fish landed by these European countries 

 over one million tons consists of herrings, which is roughly 

 equivalent to seven thousand five hundred million fish ! 



Seining 



In quite recent years a new development has taken 

 place in the British fisheries in net fishing in off-shore waters. 

 This is the use of the Danish Plaice Seine. This is a bag- 

 shaped net thirty feet in length, each side of which stretches 

 out in front to form a " wing " eighty to 100 feet long. 

 The " foot-rope " is weighted with lead and the upper 

 rope is buoyed with cork or glass floats to keep the mouth 

 of the net open. Attached to the front end of each 

 " wing " are many fathoms of warp. When fishing one 

 end of the warp of one wing is attached to an anchored 



