PENNANT VINDICATED. 177 



sources known to his countrymen south of the Tweed, 

 and by helping to cultivate a good understanding be- 

 twixt the people of North and South Britain. He paid 

 particular attention to what was needed for the deve- 

 lopment of the Scottish fisheries. His journey to Scot- 

 land and his voyage to the Hebrides, begun in 1772, 

 were completed in 1775. Attention to this date en- 

 ables us to do justice to a worthy man, and to prove 

 that, as he has not been the last, assuredly he was not 

 the first to give currency to the assertion regarding the 

 arctic-pole-haunting habit of the herring. Here is his 

 statement : after representing them as coming from 

 their great winter rendezvous within the arctic circle, 

 he proceeds thus : 



" They begin to appear off the Shetland Isles in 

 April and May. These are only forerunners of the 

 grand shoal which comes in June ; and their appear- 

 ance is marked by certain signs, by the numbers of 

 birds, such as gannets and others, which follow to prey 

 on them. But when the main body approaches, its 

 breadth and depth are such as to alter the very appear- 

 ance of the ocean. It is divided into distinct columns of 

 five or six miles in length and three or four in breadth, 

 and they drive the water before them with a kind of 

 rippling ; sometimes they sink for the space of ten or 

 fifteen minutes, then rise again to the surface, and in 

 bright weather reflect a variety of splendid colours. The 

 first check this army meets in its march southward is 

 from the Shetland Isles, which divide it into two parts. 

 One wing takes to the east, the other to the western 

 shores of Great Britain, and fill every bay and creek 

 with their numbers. Others pass on to Yarmouth, the 

 great and ancient mart of herrings ; they then pass 

 through the British Channel, and after that in a manner 

 disappear. Those which take to the west after offer- 

 ing themselves to the Hebrides, where the great sta- 

 tionary fishing is, proceed towards the north of Ireland, 

 where they meet with a second interruption, and are 



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