THE HEEEING FISHEEIES 155 



the battle of Copenhagen in 1801 once again drove the herrings 

 from the Baltic ; the Long Island fishermen in the Hebrides 

 thought at one time that their fish had left them because 

 people had started making 'kelp ; the modern Shetlander is 

 convinced that herrings cannot remain anywhere near a whaling- 

 station ; the fishermen of St. Monance in Fifeshire used to put 

 their church bell out of action in the fishing season as herrings 

 were (notoriously) afraid of it ; part of the Irish coast in 1835 

 lost all its herrings on the day that the Protestant rector 

 decided to take tithe of the fish ; and, of course, ever since 

 trawls began to be used, first by sailing-smacks and then by 

 steamers, nearly every drifterman has been firmly convinced 

 that trawl-fishing somehow ruined his own trade. 



On both sides of the Atlantic these disappearances of the 

 herring from particular waters are known to occur. In the 

 ' nineties ', for instance, a winter spawning run into the Bay 

 of Fundy ceased inexplicably, just as similar runs fell off in 

 1871-3, and again at the beginning of this century in Loch Fyne. 

 Ocean research is faced with the task of explaining these 

 fluctuations. It cannot be said to have arrived as yet at any 

 solution — and we simply do not know why herrings desert and 

 (sometimes) return to particular coasts which they have fre- 

 quented. But the solution of the problem can be arrived at 

 in one w^ay only, by the patient study of the habits of herrings. 

 And in this direction our knowledge has advanced considerably. 



