244 THE JOURNEYMAN. 



smooth-coated pretty little fish) which they drew in with 

 the water, and thus ejected. Some of the birds that 

 flocked round them to pick up the small fry which were 

 stranded on their backs, were hurried aloft in the jet, 

 like chaff or feathers in an eddy, to the height of thirty 

 or forty feet. The water round them bubbled like a 

 cauldron. There were in the immense heterogeneous 

 mass through which they swam, herrings, mackerel, 

 sand-eels, garves, cod, porpoises, and seals/ 



The exact observation and firm grasp of detail, which 

 contributed so much to make Miller a master of descrip- 

 tion, are already traceable in the following account of 

 the Bank of Guilliam, a noted resort of herrings in 

 the Moray Frith : ' The Moray Frith herring fishery 

 commences in the middle of July, and the fish com- 

 monly leave the coast in the end of August, or first 

 of September. For the first few weeks the shoals 

 are small and detached ; and the fishings only average 

 from two to five barrels per boat. Herrings are caught 

 at this early stage of the fishing on the coast of Moray, 

 nearly opposite the mouth of the Spey ; but they swim 

 in no determined track, advancing in some seasons 

 through the middle of the frith, and in others towards 

 its eastern or western shores. As the season advances 

 they come up higher, form into large bodies, and pursue 

 a route tolerably certain. At this second stage, the 

 quantity of barrels caught by each boat averages from 

 eight to fourteen. The point at which the shoals unite 

 is a long narrow bank which lies in the middle of the 

 frith, nearly opposite the bay of Crornarty, and which 

 the fishermen term Guilliam from three little conical 

 hillocks, on the northern shore, so called. These hil- 

 locks are situated near a deep ravine, about half a 

 mile south of the little fishing town of Shandwick ; 



