MIGRATION AND HYBERNATION. 147 



numbers which occurs amongst all groups of 

 animals not usually regarded as migration 

 species. Thus Dr Giinther records, on the 

 authority of Pennant, " that at Spalding in 

 Lincolnshire, there was once in seven years 

 amazing shoals, which appear in the Willand, 

 coming up the river in the form of a vast 

 column. The quantity may, perhaps, be con- 

 ceived from the fact that a man employed in 

 collecting them, gained, for a considerable time, 

 four shillings a-day by selling them at the rate of 

 a halfpenny a bushel." 



Similarly, the horse - mackerel sometimes 

 appears off our coasts in incredible numbers. 

 On one occasion, it is on record, as many as ten 

 thousand were taken in Cornwall. In 1834 one 

 of Yarrell's correspondents informed him huge 

 shoals were seen on the Glamorganshire coast. 

 " They were first observed in the evening, and 

 the whole sea, as far as we could command it 

 with the eye, seemed in a state of fermentation 

 with their numbers. Those who stood on some 

 projecting rock had only to dip their hand into 

 the water, and with a sudden jerk they might 

 throw up three or four. The bathers felt them 

 come against their bodies, and the sea looked on 

 from above, appeared one dark mass of fish. 

 Every net was put in requisition ; and those 

 which did not give way from the weight, were 

 drawn on shore laden with spoil. One of the 

 party who had a herring-seive with a two-inch 

 mesh w^as the most successful ; every mesh held 

 its fish, and formed a wall that swept on the 

 beach all before it. The quantity is very in- 



