IlERRrNG.] 



MUSEUM OF ANIMATED NATURE. 



163 



sibility of getting through the work in proper time. 

 Tlie fish are brought to the surface by a small net, 

 and two men with a large basket bale them out of 

 the net into the boat. When the fishery is carried 

 on beyond the usual distance from the coast, as at 

 Mount's Bay (see Fig. 2464, Pilchard Fishing in 

 Mount's Bay), the fish are conveyed to the shore 

 in small sloops of a few tons" burthen. In ordinary 

 cases it is conveyed by the sean boats. At St. Ives 

 huers are employed, though at all the other stations 

 they have been discontinued. The huers, accord- 

 ing to Mr. Yarrell, are " men posted on elevated 

 situations near the sea, who by various concerted 

 signals, made with a bunch of fyrze in each hand, 

 direct the fishermen how best to surround a schull of 

 fish." They perform the part which is novir assigned 

 to the master-seanerin the lurker. In some seasons 

 there are what is called the first and second catch ; 

 the latter being at a period when the season has in 

 other years generally terminated. 



The tishing by drift or driving nets is generally 

 carried on in common flshing-boats, manned by four 

 men and a boy. These boats have generally either 

 lug-sails or sprit-sails ; and there are often as many 

 as twenty nets to each boat, the whole of which 

 being joined together extend three-fourths of a mile 

 in length, though they may be much shorter, — the 

 excellence and superiority of the tackle depending 

 upon the extent of the fisherman's capital. 



The fish, on being brought to the shore, are at 

 once taken to the cellars or store-houses, where they 

 are salted and ranged in heaps, from five to six feet 

 in height, and in some instances ten or twelve feet 

 wide. After remaining in this state for five or six 

 days, they are packed into hogsheads. By the ap- 

 plication of a powerful lever at the top of the hogs- 

 head, the oil is extracted, and runs out of the casks 

 through holes made for the purpose. The pressing 

 continues for about a fortnight. The refuse salt, 

 ■which is mixed with the scales and blood of the 

 fish, is sold as manure to the farmers, and is applied 

 with great advantage to the land. It is estimated 

 that the refuse of each pilchard will manure one 

 square foot of land. 



It is computed that forty-eight hogsheads of pil- 

 chards will yield two hundred and fifty-two gallons 

 of oil. In 1801 a tun of this oil was worth from 

 20/. to 25/., but is now of much less value. Five 

 bushels of salt, of eighty-four pounds each, are re- 

 quired in curing one hogshead of pilchards, which 

 contains about three thousand fish, and weighs be- 

 tween five and six hundredweight. A stock of 

 three thousand bushels is the average consumption 

 of salt by a single sean in a favourable season. 



2465. — The Herring 



(Clupea Harengm). Contrary to the opinion of 

 Pennant and other naturalists, the herring is a resi- 

 dent in the deep water all round our coast, and only 

 approaches the shores for the purpose of depositing 

 its spawn, which accomplished, it returns to the 

 deep. Pennant, however, describes the shoals as 

 making the Arctic circle their winter rendezvous ; 

 and on their return he says they first make their 

 appearance off the Shetland Isles in April and May ; 

 but these, he adds, " are only forerunners of the grand 

 shoal which comes in June ; and their appearance 

 is marked by certain signs, by the numbers of birds, 

 such as gannets and others, which follow to prey on 

 them : but when the main body approaches, its 

 breadth and depth are such as to alter the very ap- 

 pearance of the ocean. It is divided into distinct 

 columns of five or six miles in length, and three or 

 four in breadth, and they drive the water before 

 them with a kind of rippling; sometimes they 

 sink for the space of ten or fifteen minutes, then 

 rise again to the surface, and in bright weather 

 reflect a variety of splendid colours. The first 

 check this army meets in its march southward is 

 from the Shetland Isles, which divide it into two 

 parts. One wing takes to the east, the other to the 

 western shores of Great Britain, and fill every bay 

 and creek with their numbers. Others pass on 

 towards Yarmouth, the great and ancient mart of 

 herrings ; they then pass through the British Chan- 

 nel, and after that in a manner disappear. Those 

 which take to the west, after offering themselves 

 to the Hebrides, where the great stationary fishery 

 is, proceed towards the north of Ireland, where they 

 meet with a second interruption, and are obliged to 

 make a second division. The one takes to the 

 western side, and is scarce perceived, being soon 

 lost in the immensity of the Atlantic ; but the 

 other, which passes into the Irish Sea, rejoices and 

 feeds the inhabitants of most of the coasts that 

 border on it." 



Now so far from this migration to and from the 

 Arctic circle taking place, it would appear that the 

 herring has never been seen by voyagers or whale- 

 fishers in those high northern latitudes. On the 

 southern coast of Greenland " some few of the large 

 sort of herrings are taken," says Crantz, and he pre- 

 tiousiy states that the Angmarset, a small herring 

 Vol. II. 



about six inches long, is the common food of the 

 Greenlanders, and this species was found by Sir 

 John Franklin on the shore of the Polar basin. 

 No great shoals of the common herring, however, 

 have been observed. If this fish does not make the 

 I Arctic circle its asylum, so on the other hand it 

 ' never visits the warmer latitudes, nor farther south 

 than the adjacent parts of the coast of France. 

 The extent of its migratory movements then is 

 very limited: from the shore to the deep sea, and 

 from the deep sea to the shore. The common her- 

 ring spawns in October or the beginning of No- 

 vember; and two or three months previous to this, 

 generally in the middle of July, when the fish are 

 in high condition, the shoals collect off various 

 parts of our coast, at which period the fishery, of 

 such national importance, is carried on ; after spawn- 

 ing the shoals depart, but young herrings, which, 

 unlike the salmon, do not mature their roe for the 

 first year, abound in the shallows around our coast 

 throughout the winter, and during the whole of the 

 summer, and are often caught in small meshed nets 

 used for taking sprats, atherine, and other fishes. 



It is a remarkable circumstance in the history of 

 the herring, that the shoals are extremely capricious 

 with respect to the localities they visit, and that too 

 without any accountable reason. For years they 

 will resort by myriads to a given station, which will 

 then be deserted, and some portion of a coast where 

 they have previously been extremely rare will be- 

 come thronged >vith countless multitudes. There 

 is scarcely a fishing station, says Mr. Yarrell, round 

 the British Islands that has not experienced in the 

 visits of this fish the greatest variations, both as to 

 time and quantity. These frequent changes of their 

 haunts have led to many speculations. " Ordinary 

 philosophy," says Dr. McCuUoch, " is never satisfied 

 unless it can find a solution for everything, and is 

 satisfied for this reason with imaginary ones. Thus 

 in Long Island, one of the Hebrides (a great fishing 

 station in the time of Charles the First), it was as- 

 serted that the fish had been driven away by the 

 manufacture of kelp ; some imaginary coincidence 

 having been found between their disappearance and 

 the establishment of that business. But the kelp 

 fires did not drive them away from other shores, 

 which they frequent and abandon indifferently with- 

 out regard to this work. It has been a still more 

 favourite and popular fancy that they were driven 

 away by the firing of guns, and hence this is not 

 allowed during the tishing season. A gun has 

 scarcely been fired in the Western Islands or on the 

 west coast since the days of Cromwell, yet they 

 have changed their places many times in that in- 

 terval. In a similar manner, and with equal truth, 

 it was said they had been driven from the Baltic 

 by the battle of Copenhagen. It is amusing to see 

 how old theories are revived. This is a very an- 

 cient Highland hypothesis, with the necessary modi- 

 fication. Before the days of gunpowder the High- 

 landers held that they quitted the coasts where 

 blood had been shed ; and thus ancient philosophy 

 is renovated. Steam-boats are now supposed to be 

 the culprits, since a reason must be found : to prove 

 their eft'ect, Loch Fyne, visited by a steam-boat daily, 

 is now their favourite haunt, and they have deserted 

 other lochs where steam-boats have never' yet 

 smoked." Mr. Yarrell gives a ludicrous example 

 of one reason why herrings desert an old station ; 

 his words are, — " A member of the House of Com- 

 mons during the sessions of 1835, in a debate on 

 the tythe bill, stated that a clergyman having at- 

 tained a living on the coast of Ireland, signified his 

 intention of taking the tythe of fish, which was, 

 however, considered to be so utterly repugnant to 

 their privileges and feelings, that not a single her- 

 ring had ever since visited that part of the shore." 



The food of the herring ctinsists of small crustacea 

 and fishes ; and it would appear that they do not 

 spare the young of their own race, for Dr. Neill 

 found five young herrings in the stomach of a large 

 female. They have been caught by anglers with an 

 artificial fly, and the fishermen have not unfrequently 

 taken them with lines, the hooks having been baited 

 with limpets. It is doubtless to the quality and 

 supply of food which different stations present, that 

 the superiority of the herrings of one place to those 

 of another is to be attributed. Mr. Jesse, in his 

 ' Gleanings in Natural History,' states that the her- 

 rings of Cardigan Bay are much superior to those 

 taken at Swansea. Abundance of nutritive food, 

 we may readily suppose, will tend to the develop- 

 ment of the roe ; and shoals that have luxuriated 

 on a perpetual feast are perhaps those which ap- 

 pear the soonest on our coasts. At all events the 

 herring season is not at precisely the same time in 

 every place. For example, on the western coast of 

 Scotland the fishery has sometimes terminated be- 

 fore that on the eastern coast has commenced ; it 

 has sometimes in a southern part of the coast than 

 farther north, and on the western coast of the county 

 of Cork before any other part of the United King- 

 dom. These facts, moreover, militate against the 



once universally received theory of their simulta- 

 neous Arctic migration and return. 



The herring dies almost the instant that it is taken 

 out of the water, and this in some measure results 

 from the width of the gill-openings. But it is to 

 be observed that " those fisli which swim near the 

 surface of the water, have a high standard of respi- 

 ration, a low degree of muscular irritability, and 

 great necessity for oxygen, die soon — almost imme- 

 diately — when taken out of water, and haveflesh prone 

 to rapid decomposition : mackerel, salmon, trout,and 

 herrings are examples. On the contrary those fish 

 that live near the bottom of the w^ater have a low 

 standard of respiration, a high degree of muscular 

 irritability and less necessity for oxygen ; they sus- 

 tain life long after they are taken out of the water, 

 and their flesh remains good for several days : carp, 

 tench, eels, the difi'erent sorts of skate, and all the 

 flatfish may be quoted" (Yarrell). . 



The destruction made by man, by gannets, and 

 other water-birds, and by larger fishes, amongst the 

 shoals of herrings, is almost incalculable ; yet their 

 numbers appear undiminished, myriads supplying 

 the places of the myriads destroyed. The roe of 

 the herring weighs four hundred and eighty grains, 

 and is composed of eggs varying in number from 

 three to four thousand. Thus it is then that this 

 fish, by the economy of a wise Providence, yields to 

 man a never-failing supply, the balance between 

 loss and increase being duly maintained. 



Asvi-e have said, the herring fishery is only carried 

 on during spawning season, er rather before it, 

 when the fish are in the highest perfection. The 

 Yarmouth herring fishery commences about the 

 middle of September, but the season varies at dif- 

 ferent parts of the coast. On the coast of Suther- 

 land the early herring fishery commences in June ;; 

 the late fishery about the middle of July, and con-" 

 tinues until September. On the coast of Cromarty 

 large shoals appear as early as the month of May. 

 The great object is to obtain a supply for the 

 purpose of curing, although, in the early part of 

 the season, large numbers of fresh herrings are 

 brought to the London market from Yarmouth ; and 

 the consumption at Norwich and other places, 

 which are not at a great distance from the coast, is 

 also considerable. The fish are sometimes so rich 

 in the early part of the season as to be unfit for 

 curing, and on this account they are brought into 

 the market for immediate consumption. The 

 spawning season being over by the end of October 

 or the beginning of November, the fishing terminates, 

 as the herrings are then in a poor and exhausted 

 condition. 



The size of the boat used in the herring fishery 

 depends upon the distance from the shore at which 

 the fishery is intended to be carried on, and also as 

 to whether the intention be to cure red herrings or 

 white herrings. As red herrings must be cured on 

 shore, while white-herrings require only to be salted 

 and put into barrels, those who are engaged in the- 

 red-herring trade find it convenient to keep withini 

 a certain distance of the coast. The white herrings- 

 may be cured on board the vessel ; and as the 

 fishermen may go out to sea wherever the fish are 

 to be found, this is called a deep-sea fishery, and of 

 course a vessel of a larger description is required 

 than when the cargo has to be taken as speedily 

 as possible to the drying-house. The business at 

 Yarmouth is entirely in red herrings, which are in 

 the greatest demand for the home market, while 

 the export trade, carried on at other ports, chiefly 

 consists of white herrings. The same men are in 

 general acquainted with each mode of curing. The 

 vessels fitted out for the deep-sea fishery meet with 

 the earliest and best herrings ; and, owing to the 

 manner in which herrings desert parts of the coast 

 which they have been accustomed to frequent, it is 

 a more permanent source of profit than the boat 

 fishery, though it requires a large capital. The 

 vessels must contain sufficient room in the hold for t.he 

 stowage of salt, nets, barrels, and provisions. They 

 lie low in the water, and the sides are furnished 

 with rollers and lee-boards to facilitate the drawing 

 in of the nets. The Dutch, who pursued the deep- 

 sea fishery, and once carried it on with great spirit 

 and success, were usually provided with a double 

 set of nets for fear of accident ; as their distance 

 from port would have rendered the loss or destruc- 

 tion of one set a matter of serious consequence, and 

 the hopes of a whole season might have been lost. 

 The Yarmouth boats are generally of about fifty 

 tons' burthen, and manned with eleven or twelve 

 men, of whom one-fourth are usually landsmen. In 

 addition, there are two landsmen who are employed 

 in ferrying to and from the decked vessel, and in 

 curing the herrings on shore. The fishing-places 

 are from fifteen to thirty miles north of Yarmouth, 

 from thirty to forty-five miles to the eastward, and 

 the boats go southward as far as the mouth of the 

 Thames and the South Foreland. The depth of 

 water in which the fishery is carried on is from 

 fifteen t* twenty fathoms. The Yarmouth fishitiff 



Y2 



