FRESH AND SALT. 203 



the net, and many of them never move after they are shaken 

 from the toils. Others, on the contrary, leap about the deck 

 vigorously ; but it is soon over. The proverb " dead as a 

 herring " seems to cast a reflection upon the vital powers of 

 this little fish, and there is ground for it. Herrings speedily 

 yield up the ghost when taken out of the water. They are 

 most exquisitely tinted at first with a hue of faint rose-pink, 

 but the mere contact of one herring with another is enough 

 to strip it of its beautiful vesture. The majority are caught 

 by the gills ; a few, I notice, have thrust themselves more 

 than a third of their length through the mesh, and they re- 

 tain the impression of the cord in a girdle cut round the 

 body, though it does not fracture the skin. The position of 

 the bulk of the fish on one side of the net shows which way 

 the shoal moved, and the common direction they took. A 

 few now and then have been captured while swimming from 

 an opposite quarter, waifs and strays probably. Here comes 

 a cod caught somehow in the gills, and already drowned ; 

 for him and his kindred a long-handled landing net is kept 

 near. From first to last the nets bring up a dozen mackerel 

 and half as many whiting. 



The other boats near us are hauling in concert, and over 

 the line of nets of a lugger that two days later, alas ! is 

 doomed to founder in the tempest, whose vanguard gusts are 

 sweeping the Seabird's decks, a horde of buccaneer fowl, 

 gannets, gulls, and what not, are hovering, dragging the nets 

 out of water, and robbing the fishermen of their hardly 

 won spoil. The sun rises on the sails of many of the herring 

 fleet homeward bound. Some of them have been driving 

 out here for two or three days, and are returning with fewer 

 fish than have fallen to our share in one night. It is still 



