The Herring. 



455 



THE HERRING. (Clupea Harengus.) 



THIS fish is somewhat like the mackerel in shape, as well 

 as in delicacy of taste, although it differs much in 

 flavour. It is about nine or ten inches long, and about 

 two and a half broad, and has blood-shot eyes ; the scales 

 large and roundish ; the tail forked ; the body of a fat, 

 soft, delicate flesh, but more rank than that of the 

 mackerel, and therefore less wholesome. Yet some 

 people are so very fond of it, that they call the Herring 

 the King of Fishes. They swim in shoals, and spawn onco 

 a year, about the autumnal equinox, at which time they 

 are the best. They come into shallow water to spawn, 

 like the mackerel ; and hence they periodically visit our 

 coasts, retiring again to the deep waters when the spawn- 

 ing season is over. 



The fecundity of the Herring is astonishing. It has 

 been calculated that if the offspring of a single pair of 

 Herrings could be suffered to multiply unmolested and 

 undiminished for twenty years, they would exhibit a 

 bulk ten times the size of the earth. But, happily, Pro- 

 vidence has contrived the balance of nature by giving 

 them innumerable enemies. All the monsters of the 

 deep find them an easy prey ; and, in addition to these, 

 immense flocks of sea-fowl watch their outset, and spread 

 devastation on all sides. 



In the year 1773, the Herrings for two months were 

 in such immense shoals on the Scotch coasts, that it 



