318 TOUR IN SUTHERLANDSHIRE. 



thousands of men who are all rivals in the same pursuit and 

 all eager for the best places, or what they consider as such. 

 When she fires her morning arid evening gun, or makes any 

 other signal, the echo is repeated again and again loud and 

 distinct, and then dies away with a rumbling noise like far- 

 off thunder, as the sound penetrates up some distant glen. 

 The deer feeding on the grassy burns of the corrie hear it, 

 and lifting their heads, listen intently for some minutes to 

 the strange sound, until, having made up their mind that it 

 is not a matter that concerns them, they resume their graz- 

 ing, only listening with increased watchfulness to every noise. 



As the risks and expenses of carrying on the herring-fish- 

 ings are large, so are the gains considerable, if the season is 

 favourable and the fishing lucky, 



It would be a very great assistance and cause of safety to the 

 seamen on our northern and most frequented fishing stations 

 had they the advantage of a few small steamboats, or tugs, such 

 as we see in such numbers issuing out of the Tyne and other 

 rivers of England grappling with great black colliers and traders 

 several times as big as themselves, and carrying them off (as a 

 black emmet does a blue-bottle fly) in spite of wind and tide. 



One small steam-tug could tow a line, a perfect Alexandrian 

 line, of herring-boats to and from their fishing stations; and in 

 the event of an approaching storm, a change of wind, or other 

 dangers, they would be of the greatest use in bringing home 

 the boats, nets, &c., under circumstances in which, at present, 

 much danger and much loss of life and property are sustained. 



There is a general emigration from many of the western 

 stations as soon as the herring season is over. Men, birds, 

 beasts, and rats among the rest, all desert them. Of birds the 

 number is very great : having assembled to feed on the refuse 

 of the herrings, particularly at the curing stations, they now 

 depart in all directions; whilst the rats have occasionally 

 been seen migrating in large numbers from Wick and other 

 places, and distributing themselves through the country, in 

 order to change the fish diet, which they have for so many 

 weeks luxuriated on, for a vegetable one. On the east coast, 

 where the agricultural population is numerous, the refuse of 

 the herrings is used in great quantities as manure, and being 

 laid out in large heaps on the fields preparatory to being 

 mixed with other substances, poison the air and attract great 

 numbers of sea-gulls, who appear very willing to exchange 

 fresh fish for that which is half rotten ; but a sea-gull has a 



