170 THE SEA. 



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"At last, after a lengthened cruise, our commander, who had been silent for half an 

 hour, jumped up and called to action. ' Up men, and at them ! ' was the order of 

 the night. The preparations for shooting the nets at once began by lowering sail. 

 Surrounding us on all sides was to be seen a moving world of boats ; many with 

 sails down, their nets floating in the water, and their crews at rest. Others were 

 still flitting uneasily about, their skippers, like our own, anxious to shoot in the right 

 place. By-and-by we were ready; the 'dog/ a large inflated bladder to mark the far 

 end of the train, is heaved overboard, and the nets, breadth after breadth, follow as 

 fast as the men can pay them out, till the immense train is all in the water, forming 

 a perforated wall a mile long and many feet in depth, the ' dog ' and the marking 

 bladder, floating and dipping in long zig-zag lines, reminding one of the imaginary coils 

 of the great sea-serpent. After three hours of quietude beneath a beautiful sky, the stars 



" The eternal orbs that beautify the night " 



began to pale their fires, and the grey dawn appearing indicated that it was time to take stock. 

 We found that the boat had floated quietly with the tide till we were a long distance from the 

 harbour. The skipper had a presentiment that there were fish in his net, and the bobbing 

 down of a few of the bladders made it almost a certainty; and he resolved to examine the 

 drifts. 'Hurrah!' exclaimed Murdoch of Skye; 'there's a lot of fish, skipper, and no 

 mistake/ Murdoch's news was true; our nets were silvery with herrings so laden, in 

 fact, that it took a long time to haul them in. It was a beautiful sight to see 

 the shimmering fish as they came up like a sheet of silver from the water, each uttering 

 a weak death-chirp as it was flung into the bottom of the boat. Formerly the fish were 

 left in the meshes of the net till the boat arrived in the harbour; but now, as the net is 

 hauled on board, they are at once shaken out. As our silvery treasure showers into the 

 boat, we roughly guess our capture at fifty cranes a capital night's work." Wick boats 

 are not, however, always so fortunate. The herring fleet has been overtaken more than 

 once by fearful storms, when valuable lives, boats, and nets, have been sacrificed. 



Early in December, 1879, an apparent epidemic of suicide attacked the herrings .and 

 sprats in Deal Roads, and they rushed ashore in such myriads at Walmer that the 

 fishermen got tired of carting them off, and they were left on the beach for all who 

 cared to help themselves. Nature seems now and then to put bounds to over- population, 

 but if this be the case, no herring famines need be feared, for economical Nature would 

 never have played into the hands of the fishermen who are always at war with her. 

 Such wholesale suicides occur among other forms of animal life. In Africa regiments of 

 ants have been seen deliberately marching into streams, where they were immediately de- 

 voured by fish. Rats have migrated in myriads, stopping nowhere,, neither day nor night, 

 and have been preyed upon by both large birds and beasts of prey. In the Seychelles some 

 years ago several hundred turtles conspired to die together on the island in front of the 

 harbour, and carried out their decision. Were they the victims of hydrophobia, delirium 

 tremens, or some other disease ? Even the gay and sprightly butterfly has been known to 

 migrate in immense clouds from the land straight out to sea, without the remotest chance 

 of ever reaching another shore. What could be the reason for such a suicidal act? 



