374 GENERAL REVIEW 



have attempted an April fifhery; the herrings then 

 taken are immediately cured and lent to London for 

 the Weft India market; but no fifhery at this feafon 

 hath been attempted upon the coafts of Shetland or 

 the Hebrides, though the herrings are alfo found in 

 thefe feas through the whole year.* 



Secondly, the great fhoals of emigrants or ftran- 

 gers from the north feas, as reinforcements to the for- 

 mer ; but whether thefe two divifions of herrings, the 

 natives and the ftrangers, unite or blend together, is 

 a matter of mere {peculation. We only know for a 

 certainty, that the great northern fhoals begin to ap- 

 pear off the Shetland iflands in May, and that on the 

 24th of June, they are found in fuch numbers as to 

 give full employment to hundreds of vefTels, and 

 thoufands of people, day and night. We alfo know, 

 that the great body of the herrings remain on the 

 Scottifh coaft, though not on every part of it, till the 

 1 2th of January or later; coniequently that nation, 

 from its northern fituation, and the natural progrefs of 

 the herrings, enjoys, or may enjoy, a great fifhery one 

 half of the year, befides a partial fifhery of native 

 herrings during part of the other half. It is this 

 happy fituation that gives Scotland a great advantage 

 in the duration of their fifhery ; and as there is reafon 

 to hope that the Britifh fifhery-laws will be no longer 

 difgraced by a. reftrictionj which tied up the hands 



of 



* That thefe herrings are nntives of this iflanel appears evident 

 from the following important difcovery, which was communicated 

 to me by an intelligent perfon from the Hebrides, viz. That at a 

 certain feafon, when the people of St. Kilda defcend the rocks in 

 queft of young folan geete and other fowl, they generally find the 

 nefts well flocked with young herrings, which are daily fifhed by 

 the mothers, and laid in as food to their young brood. When the 

 fcirds come from the eggs, the herrings are then two inches long ; 

 and when the former are ready to fly and {hift for themfelves, the 

 herrings are nearly in full fize. Thus {hey keep time, as it were, 

 in their advances towards maturity. The number of young her- 

 rings procured for this purpofe, by the old birds, exceed all credit 



