8 THE HERRING FISHERIES. 



even supposing that it was, it looks as if the Dutch still 

 deserved the palm for superior strategy. While, however, we 

 willingly accord whatever praise is due to the Dutch, we 

 are far from endorsing the extravagant eulogy that many 

 have thought fit to bestow on them. The Dutch fishermen 

 of old acquired, and for a long time maintained, their proud 

 position by their method of curing herrings. It is some- 

 what strange that, great as England was in many respects 

 at the meridian of Dutch prosperity, she should have been 

 so far behind in this matter. Probably those great events ' 

 of the time of Elizabeth were themselves the cause. The 

 people were too much occupied by foreign affairs to attend 

 to humbler matters at home. The Dutch fishermen kept 

 their secrets pretty much to themselves ; but it will probably 

 be found that they owed much of their success to their curing 

 the herrings immediately they were hauled up from the 

 sea. 



The French fishery is chiefly remarkable for the cure of 

 sprats (about which we shall have something more to say 

 presently) in oil. 



The Norwegian fishery is noted for various methods of 

 smoking the young herring. 



A very interesting mode of fishing under difficulties is 

 practised in Russia. Owing to the severe climate of that 

 country, and to the consequent freezing of the water, the 

 fishing industry is much curtailed ; but the fishermen 

 manage to secure a good many fish by making lines of 

 holes in the ice, and inserting their nets in them. 



It may not be inappropriate to say something here about 

 the whitebait, the sprat, and the pilchard. As regards the 

 whitebait, the question that chiefly interests us is whether 

 it is the young of the herring or not. For a long time 

 naturalists held that it was not ; and there is a good deal 



