12 THE HERRING FISHERIES. 



and others likewise, to vend their produce in England. 

 Many of the traditions connected with Great Yarmouth 

 are strangely linked with names that bespeak French or 

 Norman extraction. 



Peter Chivalier, a Yarmouth merchant, is credited with 

 discovering how to cure herrings in salt, and his method 

 was followed up by one Peter de Ferars. Louis VII. of 

 France passed an edict that only mackerel and salted 

 herrings might be purchased at Estampes ; this was in the 

 year 1155. 



It was at Kiel Bay that the food of the herring was 

 popularly demonstrated to be of a certain kind. Although 

 M. Mobins is not the only naturalist who has asserted this, 

 still we are indebted to the French coast fishery for those 

 facts which relate to herring food. In the year 1383 im- 

 mense shoals were caught off the French coasts, and some- 

 times the schools of herring are so large that the boats are 

 unable to take all the herring which " strike." 



During the season of 1880, which was a remarkable one 

 in all quarters, one French fisherman drew thirty-five lasts, 

 and it is asserted that another on one occasion caught more 

 than fifty lasts, or 700,000 herrings. 



And the takes of herring by French fishermen for 1 880-81 

 are recorded to be above the usual average. 



The sprat or sardine fishery of France is the most ex- 

 tensive of any that seek that species of the herring ; and 

 young herring-fry and pilchards form a large percentage of 

 the true sardine ; and it may be admitted that, in other 

 points connected with fish culture and fish acclimatization, 

 we should do well to follow up the footsteps of France. 



The herrings appear on the north-western shores of Ice- 

 land from May to September ; sometimes [later, never 

 sooner, or very rarely so, and always found in September 



