HERRINGS. 103 
the canoes ; they also employ the ‘rake,’ already 
described as used for taking candle-fish. One 
savage, sitting in the stern of his canoe, paddles 
along, keeping in the herring shoal; another, 
having the rounded part of the rake firmly fixed 
in both hands, sweeps it through the crowded ° 
fish, from before aft, using all his force: gene- 
rally speaking, every tooth has a herring im- 
paled on it, sometimes three or four. It is 
astonishing how rapidly an Indian will fill 
his canoe with herrings, using this rude and 
primitive contrivance. 
A wholesale system of capture is practised 
in Puget’s Sound, Point Discovery, and Port 
Townsend, where large mud-flats run out for 
long distances into the sea, which are left quite 
dry at low-tide. Across these flats Indians 
make long dams of latticework, having here and 
there openings like our salmon-traps, allow- 
ing herrings to pass easily in, but preventing 
their return. Shoal after shoal pass through 
these ‘ gates,’ but are destined never to get back 
to their briny home. It is not at all uncommon 
to take from two to three tons of fish at one tide, 
by this simple but ingenious method. 
When the tide is well out, and the flats clear 
of water, the Indians bring down immense quan- 
