344 LABRADOR 



and the roofs of their mouths, they feed by sieving the water 

 through gill-rakers armed with teeth and fine spines, which 

 catch the small copepods, etc., and gently guide them down 

 their throats. 



They spawn in spring and autumn, but the same herring 

 only spawns once a year, and they do not spawn till eighteen 

 months old. The danger to the herring increases immensely 

 when they come into the shallower waters for this or any 

 purpose. It seems, therefore, another provision of nature 

 that they should be a swift-swimming fish and, after spawn- 

 ing, leave rapidly for deep water. 



Dr. Moses Harvey, the historian, writing in 1880, says 

 the average export of herring from Labrador was 50,000 to 

 70,000 barrels for the years immediately preceding. In 

 1880, 20,000 barrels were exported; in 1881, 33,330 barrels; 

 in 1908, only 180 barrels. As many as 500 barrels have 

 been taken in one haul at Snug Harbour. Captain Hennesy 

 described to me how, thirty years ago, he sailed through 

 millions of herring north of Cape Mugford; their vast bulk 

 made the surface of the sea oily. 



There are many superstitions about herring, and the 

 reasons advanced for their not " coming in" have been of 

 every conceivable kind. To change this luck, some amusing 

 ceremonial " charms" have been invented, such as dressing 

 a fisherman in a striped shirt and riding him around the 

 town in a wheelbarrow. Another valuable recipe was to 

 pick out herring with red fins without letting them touch 

 wood, and then pass them round and round the scudding 

 pole as many times as the number of lasts of herring you 

 hoped to capture next autumn. A " last " means 1320 her- 

 rings. Less amusing was the burning alive, two centuries 



