CONDUCT OF THE WHITE FISHER V. 301 



fisheries. So far as our most plentiful table fish are con- 

 cerned, the supply seems utterly dependent on chance or the 

 will of individuals. A man (or company) owning a boat goes 

 to sea just when he pleases. In Scotland, where a great 

 quantity of the best white fish are caught, this is particularly 

 the case, and the consequence is that at the season of the 

 year when the principal white and flat fish are in their 

 primest condition, they are not to be procured ; the general 

 answer to all inquiries as to the scarcity being, " The men are 

 away at the herring." This is true ; the best boats and the 

 strongest and most intelligent fishermen have removed for a 

 time to distant fishing-towns to engage in the capture of the 

 herring, which forms, during the summer months, a noted 

 industrial feature on the coasts of Scotland, and allures to the 

 scene all the best fishermen, in the hope that they may gain 

 a prize in the great herring-lottery, prizes in which are not 

 uncommon, as some boats will take fish to the extent of two 

 hundred barrels in the course of a week or two. Only a few 

 decrepit old men are left to try their luck with the cod and 

 haddock lines ; the result being; as I have stated above, a 

 scarcity of white and flat fish, which is beginning to be felt 

 in greatly enhanced prices. An intelligent Newhaven fish- 

 wife recently informed me that the price of white fish in 

 Edinburgh a city close to the sea has been more than 

 quadrupled within the last thirty years. She remembers 

 when the primest haddocks were sold at about one penny per 

 pound weight, and in her time herrings have been so plen- 

 tiful that no person would purchase them. We shall not soon 

 look again on such times. 



The cod and haddock fishery is a laborious occupation. 

 At Buckie, a quaint fishing-town on the Moray Firth, which 

 I will by and by describe, it is one of the staple occupations 

 of the people. At that, little port there are generally about 

 thirty or forty large boats engaged in the fishery, as well as a 



