HERRING. 



the parent to the proper nidus, with far more cer- 

 tainty than the reason of man can do it. These 

 appear to be chief natural causes of the apparent 

 capriciousness of the herrings, in respect of locality ; 

 and we have stated them at some length, because 

 they will, with modifications for the several races, 

 apply to every fish which has the same habit. 



Some explanation of this kind is necessary, also, on 

 account of the prejudices which exist on the subject. 

 The disappearance of any valuable species of fish 

 from a part of the coast on which they have been 

 abundant for some time, is one of the most severe 

 calamities that can befal the inhabitants ; as great, 

 in some instances, as if the blight of total ste- 

 rility were to be sent upon the earth. This being 

 the case, and more the case in proportion as the land 

 is poorer, and the people more dependant on the 

 sea, (which is saying, in other words, that they are 

 very superstitious,) it is very natural that the people 

 should assign causes for these apparent caprices ; and, 

 under the circumstances, it is hardly possible that 

 they should assign any but superstitious and absurd 

 ones. But there are perhaps no evils more prone to 

 growth and spreading than prejudices ; and thus, 

 when they are entertained upon any one subject, they 

 very speedily taint the whole character. 



Some of the prejudices which are entertained re- 

 specting the disappearance of herrings from different 

 localities on the British shores, are so very curious, 

 notwithstanding their absurdity, that we shall notice 

 them ; and we cannot do better than by quoting from 

 the late Dr. M'Culloch, and we shall quote as from 

 Mr. Yarrell's admirable work on British fishes, for the 

 sake of introducing an Irish anecdote mentioned by 

 that gentleman in supplement to the Scotch absurdi- 

 ties. " Ordinary philosophy is never satisfied," says 

 Dr. M'Culloch, "unless it can find a solution for 

 every thing ; and is satisfied, for this reason, with 

 imaginary ones. Thus, in Long Island, one of the 

 Hebrides, it was asserted that the fish had been 

 driven away by the manufactory 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 without 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 tins is not allowed during the fishing 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 interval. In a similar manner, and with equal 

 truth, it was said that 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 

 ancient highland hypothesis, with the necessary modi- 

 fication. Before the days of guns and gunpowder, 

 the highlanders held that they quitted 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 

 r erl'ect, Loch Fyne, visited by a steam-boat daily, 

 is now their favourite haunt, and they have deserted 

 i lochs where steam-boats have never yet smoked." 

 " A member of the House of Commons, during the ses- 

 sion of 1835, in a debate on a tithe bill, stated,.that a 

 clergyman having obtained a living on the coast of Ire- 

 land, signified his intention of taking the tithe offish; 



739 



which was, however, considered to be so utterly re- 

 pugnant to their privileges and feelings, that not a 

 single herring had ever since visited that part of the 

 shore ! " 



Herrings, besides coming in great numbers to our 

 shores, are exceedingly prolific ; and the spawn 

 being deposited in the end of autumn or the early 

 part of winter, much about the same time as that of 

 the salmon, quickens early in the spring ; and, as the 

 summer advances, the fry are found in countless mul- 

 titudes along all the shores where the bottom is 

 shelving, and the water shallow for some distance. 

 Though the shoals of herrings are met with at parti- 

 cular points only it is probable that they deposit their 

 spawn along the whole line of the coast wherever the 

 bottom is fit for the purpose ; and thus immense 

 quantities of fry are met with in places where there is 

 no fishing. Thus, for instance, herrings are very 

 rarely caught in the Tay ; and yet, when stake-nets 

 were erected in the estuary of that river for catching 

 salmon, such multitudes of herring fry, or " herring- 

 Boil," as they are called generally, on the east coast, 

 though with various pronunciations of the last syllable, 

 got entangled in the nets, that at low water they were 

 sometimes found lying ankle deep ; and without 

 any entanglement they may sometimes be taken in 

 great quantities by simply letting down a basket and 

 drawing it up again. So common indeed are they, 

 that it is scarcely possible to use a small meshed net 

 during the summer upon any part of the coast with- 

 out capturing numbers of them; and the juvenile 

 fishers at the points of piers, and jetties, and other 

 situations where there runs of tidal water, catch them 

 indiscriminately with the fry of the cole fish. They 

 retire from the narrower parts of the estuaries at the 

 end of summer, though in some of the broader ones 

 they remain during the autumn, and do not rove far 

 from the coast during the winter. Indeed it is by no 

 means improbable that if the movements of grown 

 herrings in the sea were properly traced, it might be 

 o managed that they might be taken in a condition 

 fit for use at all seasons of the year, at least if, as we 

 are inclined to believe, the spawning is riot annual. 



Herrings are captured by means of what are called 

 drift nets, that is, nets which are left in the sea, sus- 

 pended from the surface, and descending only to a 

 moderate depth. This is the usual method of catch- 

 ing all the surface fishes which swim in shoals, such 

 as mackerel and pilchards, only the meshes of the 

 net vary with the kind of fish. In such nets the 

 fishes are not enclosed, but entangled in the meshes 

 through which they attempt to pass, but are not able, 

 neither can they retreat, as the threads of the mesh 

 catch hold of their gill-covers, and thus they are 

 often suffocated while in the net. These nets often 

 extend to a great length, many miles belonging to 

 the same proprietor in the larger fisheries ; and these 

 fisheries can be carried on to the proper extent only 

 by persons of considerable capital. A proper equip- 

 ment of nets, boats, and busses, with the men requi- 

 site to work them, requires an outlay of from fifteeu 

 to twenty thousand pounds ; and after all, the fishery, 

 at least that for sea fishery where such extensive nets 

 are. used, is in a great measure a lottery. Owing to 

 the capricious habit of the fish, they may not come to 

 the spot where the net is put down ; and on the 

 other hand, as the best fishing is about the time when 

 the autumnal gales are most severe, the nets may be 

 drifted out to sea and lost, by the action of the wind 

 AA A2 



