738 HERRING. 



reef of the Carr-rocks, and so stranded, ana that, lei.; 

 by the ebb-tide, they lay in countless thousands for 



.1 M J_l__lf-_ !_-_! . *1_ 



at least a mile and a half or two miles along the 

 shore. The reason for the announcement was a fear 

 on the part of the authorities in Crail that such a 

 quantity of animal matter remaining to putrify on the 

 beacn would taint the atmosphere and cause disease. 



At that time there was of course no danger ; for 

 though herrings, as is the case with all surface-fish, 

 and with this family in an especial manner, die very 

 soon after being taken out of the water, yet many of 

 them were alive, and less injured than if they had 

 been taken in the usual way, of being entangled in 

 nets by the gill-lids. Thus they were there abso- 

 lutely as a mine of wealth ; but, unfortunately, the 

 people could not avail themselves of them to the full 

 extent of their value. There are salt-works, that is, 

 works for obtaining salt by the evaporation of sea- 

 water, at no great distance, but, unfortunately, the 

 impolitic, and, in cases like this, the most iniquitously 

 cruel duty on salt then existed ; and, though we 

 believe there was a drawback of the duty upon salt 

 which had been applied to the curing of fish, there 

 was no warehouse bonding, or any other means by 

 which a stock could be kept without actual payment of 

 the duty in the first instance ; and this was tantamount 

 to a positive enactment that no stock should be kept, 



There cannot be a more severe reproof of that 

 ministerial cupidity, which, for the gratification of 

 ambition, and the most unholy purpose of deluging 

 the earth with 'human blood, ignorantly lays taxes 

 upon everything, without knowing or caring what 

 may be the consequences, than such a case as this. 

 There was an immense quantity of human food, in the 

 very finest condition, cast on the shore, without con- 

 trivance or labour on the part of man, as if it had 

 been a miraculous instance of the bounty of Heaven ; 

 and yet the people could not avail themselves of that 

 bounty because of the duty on salt ! At the same 

 time there was a Board for the Encouragement of the 

 British Fisheries, with well-paid commissioners, and 

 there were bounties given to certain successful pro- 

 secutors of the fishery. Fortunately for us, those 

 times of " the blackness of darkness" in legislation 

 have, in some measure, gone by, and perhaps the 

 period is not very remote when they will be numbered 

 among the fables of antiquity, which all wonder at, 

 but none believe. In this case there was probably, 

 however, more absolute loss from the want of salt 

 than the whole salt-duty of Scotland amounted to in 

 a dozen years. It may be said that the people of 

 Crail could have kept a stock of salt, well knowing 

 that, if a shoal of herrings should ground upon their 

 coast, and they should use the salt in curing them, 

 they would get the drawback. But this same system 

 of drawback, while it leads to many acts of villany, 

 is one of the most complete extinguishers of industry 

 and enterprise that can be imagined. If there were 

 no drawback, people would include the duty among 

 the other costs of production, and so accommodate 

 the article to meet contingencies, much in the same 

 way as if there were no duty ; but there never will 

 be a surplus of that upon which a payment has been 

 made, to be got back again under circumstances which 

 are contingent ; and thus the drawback has a more 

 mischievous effect upon any manufacture than the 

 same amount of duty without any drawback. There- 

 fore, the sooner that all such mischievous laws are 

 repealed the better. 



In the cases alluded to, tne peop e aid wnat they 

 could ; they used all the salt in the towns and places 

 adjoining ; and they made signals, and sent mes- 

 sages, so that light craft came from some other 

 places, and carried off part of the herrings in bulk ; 

 but the fish are too tender for such treatment, and 

 only a small quantity could be taken, as there was 

 enough to load a navy ; and, therefore, the farmers 

 of the neighbourhood carted off the far greater part, 

 to be worked up in compost as manure. 



Though there is no reason to believe that the 

 herrings make any longer voyages than from the 

 deep waters to the shore, to mature and deposit 

 their spawn, and back again when that operation 

 is completed ; yet they are, to our apprehension, 

 very capricious, that is to say, they come in multi- 

 tudes to certain parts of the coast for a greater or 

 smaller number of years, and again totally abandon 

 it, nobody can tell why. Of course there is no 

 caprice in this ; for, like all other occurrences in 

 nature, it may have a natural cause ; and the pro- 

 bable one is that the herrings, by resorting to one 

 particular spot in such immense shoals as they do, 

 exhaust that spot of the proper food for themselves 

 and their offspring ; and are under the necessity of 

 seeking another haunt, until the store again accumu- 

 lates in such quantity as to be adequate to their wants. 

 Fat bottoms, where there is an eddy, or one current 

 running against another, and consequently a deposit, 

 appear to be the places which they prefer ; and 

 hence, the herrings in Loch Fyne, and some of the 

 other inlets of the Atlantic, which have the middle of 

 considerable depth, but the bottom rich toward the 

 shores, are much larger and finer than those taken in 

 water where there is little stagnation, and, conse- 

 quently, little deposit. On the east coast we find the 

 herrings richer in flavour in proportion as they are 

 nearer to the banks, though, for the reason which we 

 have already assigned, it is not probable that they 

 naturally resort to those banks where cod shoal, 

 although, cod are much mere bottom fishes than 

 herrings. The exhausting of their food at any par- 

 ticular spawning-place is, however, the only natural 

 reason that we can assign for the apparent caprice of 

 the herrings ; and we find it confirmed, or, at all 

 events, rendered more probable, by t'he conduct of 

 some other animals both of the sea and the land. 

 Haddocks are not quite so capricious as herrings ; 

 but they often quit a particular spot after being 

 abundant upon it for years. Salmon also desert 

 rivers, not only in consequence of the quantity of 

 deleterious matter in them (which is probably the 

 cause of their having deserted the Thames), but also 

 when only gravel is discharged into the stream. In 

 forming the Caledonian canal, it was found necessary 

 partially to change the bed of the river Ness, The 

 cutting thrown into it was clean gravel ; but in such 

 quantity that, though the water was not at least very 

 turbid all the way to the sea (about two or three 

 miles), there was a constant deposit of gravelly 

 matter on the bottom ; and the salmon, in a great 

 measure, deserted the river. The only probable 

 cause of this desertion was that the gravel covered 

 up the food either of the salmon or of their fry, most 

 probably of the latter. We must not wonder that 

 a salmon should cease to come for the purpose of 

 spawning to a place where its young cannot find food ; 

 for, in all cases where the parent animal does not 

 attend to the young, there is an instinct which guides 



