28o THE SEAS 



The herring fisheries lie all round the coasts of the 

 British Isles, and the chief time for catching the fish is 

 when they are approaching the coasts in dense shoals to 

 spawn. Time of spawning is probably to a large extent 

 determined by the temperature of the surrounding water 

 and there are great differences in the dates of the spawning 

 periods from place to place. The great drift fishery starts 

 on the west coast of Scotland at Stomoway in the Hebrides 

 in May ; in June the herring are being caught off the 

 Orkneys and Shetlands after which they begin to appear 

 successively at different localities down the Scottish coast, 

 until by the middle of July the fishery opens at Shields. 



By the end of July, Scarborough and Grimsby are the 

 chief centres of the herring industry'-, and early in October 

 the fishermen are hard at work at Yarmouth and Lowestoft, 

 the two leading herring ports. The boats from many ports 

 follow this herring fishery round the coast, many Lowestoft 

 boats for instance ending the herring season fishing from 

 Plymouth, where the herring are spawning throughout the 

 winter until January. There is also a herring fishery of 

 appreciable value situated in western waters between the 

 English and Irish Coasts. 



The apparent advance of the herring southward along 

 our east coasts gave rise to the idea that it was actually 

 a migration of the herring themselves ; that in the spring 

 they collected in great armies in the Arctic Ocean and from 

 there worked their way down our coasts. Thus, Mr. 

 Pennant in his " British Zoology " in 1812 remarks, " The 

 great winter rendezvous of the herring is within the Arctic 

 circle : there they continue many months in order to 

 recruit themselves after the fatigue of spawning, the seas 

 within that space sw^arming with insect food in a far greater 

 degree than in our warmer latitudes. 



" This mighty army begins to put itself in motion in the 



