66 FISHERIES AND FISHERMEN 



these parts is connected with many associations of our own 

 history, and one can the better understand the miserable 

 antipathy between the two nations, now happily almost for- 

 gotten, when we find them fighting tooth and nail over such 

 easily comprehensible matters as the pounds, shillings, and 

 pence, derived from the fisheries. Some one has, or ought 

 to have, already observed that war never yet broke out which 

 had not for its real intention a change in the ownership of 

 territory ; but most persons would be surprised at the number 

 of Treaties in which the right of fishing claims the dignity 

 of especial mention. Nearer home the capture of herrings 

 employs some 4000 or 5000 Frenchmen from July to 

 November, but the method of carrying is hardly so suc- 

 cessful as that of Holland, and the fish suffer much in con- 

 sequence of the want of wells in the boats. In the earlier 

 part of the year, or rather during the spring, mackerel are 

 obtained on the northern, western, and southern coasts ; and 

 what are popularly supposed to be sardines on a holiday 

 excursion from their home in the Mediterranean, make 

 their appearance in the fashionable month of May. At 

 Dieppe there is a school for giving instruction in the 

 mending of nets, two of which differ in their action from 

 those hitherto described, the carelet being a net for upward, 

 and the epervier for downward capture. 



Norway, dotted with its innumerable islands and indented 

 by fjords stretching far inland among the mountains, is the 

 very home for cod and such like fish. From 20 to 25 

 millions are taken every year off the Lofoten district 

 alone. Herrings are very capricious in their visits to the 

 coast, or at least their movements are subject to laws not yet 

 discovered. From 1650 to 1699 they stayed away altogether, 

 and again from 1784 to 1808, both from the Norwegian and 

 the Swedish coasts ; a subject now receiving illustration from 



