S68 JITTER LV'H. 



the pilchard find a secqre and peaceful retreat , equal- 

 ly inaccessible to man, and to their numerous enemies 

 .of the deep. In those sequestered abodes, iheir hi- 

 .crease is beyond conception ; and it seems i hat the 

 consequent deficiency of insect food, on which they 

 subsist, is the cause of their annual migrations. About 

 the niiddle of winter the great colony sets out from 

 the polar seas, composed of such numbers, that if alt 

 the horses in the world were loaded with herrings, 

 they could not carry the thousandth part of them. 

 However, .they no sooner leave their peaceful abode, 

 than they enter into a world of warfare and depreda- 

 tion; and numerous enemies appear to thin their 

 squadrons. The cachalot swallows thousands in an 

 instant; the porpoise, the grampus, the shark, and the 

 dolphin, with- the whole tribe of dog fish,. suspend 

 iheir mutual hostilities, and unite against the easy 

 prey. The numerous flocks of sea fowl that inhabit 

 'he northern regions, also watch the outset of the 

 dangerous migration, and spread destruction among 

 their defenceless shoals, 



After proceeding about as far as the northern extre- 

 mity of Europe, the colony separates into two great 

 bodies, one of which directs its course westward, and 

 pours along the coast of America as far southward 

 as Carolina, which seems to be the utmost limits of 

 their progress towards that quarter. In the bay of 

 Chesapeak, the annual inundation of herrings is so 

 great, that they cover the shores and become a nui- 

 sance. That body which moves towards Europe, first 

 approaches the coast of Iceland, in the beginning of 

 March. Upon their arrival in that coast, their pha- 

 lanx already considerably diminished, is still of a 

 prodigious extent, depth, and closeness, covering 

 an extent as large as the island itself. -The whole sea 

 seems alive to avast distance; and imagination can 

 scarcely conceive any limit to the numbers which co- 

 ver the watery surface. 



The shoal which arrives on our coasts begins to ap- 

 pear off the Shetland islands in April. These are thf 

 forerunners -of the grand shoal, which descends in. 



