SURFACE-FEEDING SEA FISH 391 



from maiden, signifies a herring which has not spawned and 

 from which the roe is absent. Fish full of roe, on the other 

 hand, are in Scotland termed mazy herrings. 



As for legends, there is no end to them. According to a 

 copy of the ' Banff Journal,' published some time in 1885, cer- 

 tain Buckie fishermen dressed up an unfortunate cooper in a 

 flannel shirt with bars all about it, and wheeled him through 

 the town on a barrel, like a cockney Guy Fawkes. The herring 

 fisheries had been very bad, and it was supposed that this 

 proceeding would improve them. There are even dark stories 

 of men and women having been burnt for having cast their evil 

 eye on the fishery and driven away the herrings. It is, by the 

 way, a common practice for whale fishers to burn an effigy to 

 bring luck whenever a ship has fallen in with few whales. The 

 crew attribute their bad fortune to some unlucky person, and 

 by burning his effigy they believe his malign influence will 

 be overcome. Needless to say, the unlucky individual is 

 generally the must unpopular man on board. If luck is 

 exceedingly bad, two or three pictures or effigies are thus 

 sacrificed. It is possible that this ancient practice arose 

 from just such a custom as that which prevailed among the 

 herring fishers of Banffshire, by whom it may have been intro- 

 duced on board the Peterhead whalers. 



In Norfolk there was a curious theory that herrings and 

 fleas made their appearance about the same time. In ' Notes 

 and Queries' a fisherman of Cromer was credited with the 

 following remark : ' Lawk, sir, times is as you might look in my 

 flannel shirt and scarce see a flea, and then there ain't but a 

 very few herrings ; but times that'll be right alive with them, 

 and there's certain to be a sight of fish.' 



The Manx fishermen, who are particularly superstitious, 

 think there is great virtue in taking a dead wren to sea. The 

 idea appears to be based on an old tradition of some sea spirit 



