CHAP. ix.J FISH COMMUNITIES. 395 



Particular shoals of herring, for instance, gather off particular 

 counties ; the Lochfyne herring, as I have mentioned in the 

 account of the herring-fishery, differs from the herring of the 

 Caithness coast or that of the Firth of Forth ; and any 'cute 

 fishmonger can tell a Tweed salmon from a Tay one. The 

 herring at certain periods move in gigantic shoals, the chief 

 members of the Gadidse congregate on vast sand-banks, and 

 the whales occasionally roam about in schools ; while the 

 Pleuronectidre occupy sandy places in the bottom of the sea. 

 We have all heard of the great codbanks of Newfoundland, 

 of the fish community at Bockall ; then is there not the 

 Nymph Bank, near Dublin, celebrated for its haddocks? 

 have we not also the Faroe fishing-ground, the Dogger Bank, 

 and other places with a numerous fish population ? There 

 are wonderful diversities of life in the bosom of the deep ; 

 and there is beautiful scenery of hill and plain, vegetable 

 and rock, and mountain and valley. There are shallows and 

 depths suited to different aspects of life, and there is life of 

 all kinds teeming in that mighty world of waters, and the 



fishes live 



" A cold sweet silver life, wrapped in round waves, 

 Quickened with touches of transporting fear." 



The prawn and the shrimp are ploughed in innumerable 

 quantities from the shallow waters that lave the shore. The 

 shrimper may be seen any day at work, pushing his little net 

 before him. To reach the more distant sandbanks he requires 

 a boat ; but on these he captures his prey with greater facility, 

 and richer hauls reward his labour than when he plies his 

 putting-net close inshore. The shrimper, when he captures 

 a sufficient quantity, proceeds to boil them ; and till they 

 undergo that process they are not edible. The shrimp is 

 " the ' Undine' of the waters,' 7 and seems possessed by some 

 aquatic devil, it darts about with such intense velocity. Like 

 the lobster and the crab, the prawn periodically changes its 



