THE BRITISH HERRING FISHERY 



nearest net for examination. The warp comes in so 

 easily that a stranger to the work would conclude that 

 nothing has been done ; surely only an empty net could 

 weigh so little ! 



True enough, as the first meshes rise above the water, 

 nothing can be seen in the net. But wait ; near the 

 lower edge is an irregular row of herring, whose presence 

 suggests that there are more where they came from. The 

 bulk of the shoal has not yet started to rise. 



" That's near enough," says the skipper. " Let's run 

 out the whole fleet"; and speedily extra nets are fastened 

 on, one after another, till there is a wall of them, many 

 hundreds of yards long, trailing out into the sea, the 

 cork-line waggling and coiling till it looks like an endless 

 worm. 



Other boats are running up blue-lights now, but no one 

 troubles to comment on the fact ; there is silence again, 

 only broken by the plop-plop of the fish as they rise, or 

 by a sudden wild shriek from the gulls as they announce 

 to their friends the fishermen that the herrings continue 

 to play near the surface. Following the track of the 

 cork-line with our eye, we can see that it is now illuminated 

 all along with streaks of greenish light ; every now and 

 then, too, we may see the bladders rocking and bobbing in 

 a curious manner ; now one goes completely under and 

 comes up again ; the corks are swaying hither and 

 thither irresponsibly. The advance-guard of a shoal is 

 being safely snared. 



But, before there is time to do more than arrive at this 

 conclusion, a whole wave of phosphorus flashes along in 



140 



