HADDOCK-FISHING. 319 



most convenient and unfastidious appetite, thriving on any- 

 thing that comes m his way. 



The Highlanders who have assisted at the fishing on the 

 east coast, now return home with heavier bundles and purses, 

 but lighter hearts : however, I fear that many of the inhabi- 

 tants of the fishing villages spend a great part of their 

 hard-earned wages in whisky, instead of applying it to the 

 comforts of their families. Some are more prudent, and lay 

 the money by, in order that in due time they may become 

 owners of a herring-boat themselves. 



The inhabitants, at least the males, of fishing villages are 

 an indolent-looking race, going about all their land occupa- 

 tions in a slow and lazy manner, and being for the most part 

 remarkably ignorant. But we should bear in mind that they 

 spend their nights at sea, in laborious and fatiguing occupa- 

 tion, exposed to cold and wet, and that it is only during their 

 intervals of rest that we see them, when they are lounging 

 about half asleep, and leaving to their wives the business of 

 preparing their lines and selling the fish. 



The coiling of a long line, with about three hundred hooks 

 on it, is a mystery to the unpractised and uninitiated. Each 

 haddock boat takes out coiled lines with from two to three 

 thousand baited hooks upon them, and yet so perfectly and 

 skilfully are they arranged that they never catch or entangle, 

 but run out with as great certainty and ease as a ship's cable. 



The haddock-fishing on the coast is carried on in smaller 

 boats than the herring-fishing ; each boat has, however, more 

 hands on board, partly for the sake of rowing, and partly of 

 working these long lines, or " shooting " them, as it is called. 



The boats frequently run forty or fifty miles to set their 

 haddock and cod lines ; going from Nairn and the adjacent 

 fishing villages over to Wick, where they are almost always 

 sure of a plentiful supply of fish. 



Trawling for flat fish has not yet been tried to any ex- 

 tent, but I have no doubt that it would be a most profitable 

 and useful speculation. At present we get no soles, but 

 occasionally some turbot are caught : for these, however, the 

 demand is confined to a few of the neighbouring gentry; and 

 consequently this kind of fishing is not much practised. A 

 boat's crew does occasionally go out to fish for turbot, using a 

 very simple and small kind of hang-net, and generally brings 

 home a good supply. 



Looking at the state of British sea-fisheries in general, it 



