i;)12] on The North Sea and its Fisheries. 423 



years ago, I think there cau be no dou])t that their prosperity as a 

 class was never greater than it is now. 



Let me say a word about the herring fishery. The herring con- 

 stitutes more than two-thirds of the total quantity of fish landed in 

 Scotland, and considerably more than half the value of the whole ; 

 and in Holland the numbers are all but identical. In England, on 

 the otiier hand, it represents less than one-third of the entire quantity, 

 and about one-eighth of the total value. If we deduct trawled lish, 

 and deal only with the produce of the less capitalized industry, the 

 industry of the men of net and line, then the comparison becomes 

 still more striking ; for we find that in Scotland <S7 per cent, of the 

 catch of such fishermen, and 83 per cent, of its value, is contributed 

 by the herring alone. It is, and always has been, the mainstay of our 

 fisherfolk. 



There are many ways of catching herring. In the shallows of 

 the Baltic Sea they capture them with fixed nets, forming great com- 

 plicated traps. In Norway, in America, and to some extent on our 

 west coast, they encircle them with a seine, after the manner of the 

 pilchard fishery. But the great North Sea fishery is by means of 

 the drift net, roped and buoyed, which forms a vertical wall, miles 

 long, against which the shoal swims, and the fisli are caught fast by 

 the gills. Two hundred million square yards of netting are used in 

 our Scotch herring fishery. The net is only a narrow strip, but make 

 it into a single square, and it would more than cover London. 



The herring is a northern fish, but it is one of the most widely 

 distributed of fishes. It surrounds the North Atlantic, and even 

 extends into the Pacific, where it forms one of the chief fisheries of 

 Japan. But even in our own area the herring are not all alike, but 

 fall into several well-marked varieties, or separate races. We have, 

 for instance, the winter-herring, that breeds close inshore in early 

 spring, loving water that is but httle salt ; and in the North Sea we 

 have several races of such herring as this. Then we have another 

 and greater sort, or set of races, that breed in summer and autumn, 

 and these the fishermen follow throughout the year. They begin in 

 spring or early summer to fish in the Hebrides a great herring whose 

 home is in the Atlantic ; a month or so later the fleets are in Shet- 

 land, first on the west and afterwards on the east coast ; in the 

 height of summer and early autumn the Scotch east coast fishery is 

 at its height, and by taking the average of many years we can pre- 

 cisely mark the successive dates, following each other week by week, 

 or day by day, when the fishery culminates at successive points more 

 and more to the southward along the coast. By October the fishery 

 of the north-east coast is over, and the fleets are gathered at 

 Lowestoft and Yarmouth, but here the herring that they capture is 

 of another and a smaller race ; and in the winter-time yet another, 

 but lesser fishery, occurs in the Channel. I show you a few pictures 

 of the busy times of the herring fishery. 



