CHAP. I.] THE RICH VCTSUS THE POOR MAN'S FISH. 15 



There are points of contrast between the salmon and the 

 herring which I cannot pass without notice. They form the 

 St. Giles' and St. James' of the fish world, the one being a 

 portion of the rich man's food, and the other filling the poor 

 man's dish. The salmon is hedged round by protecting Acts 

 of Parliament, but the herring gets leave to grow just as it 

 swims, parliamentary statutes being thought unnecessary for 

 its protection. The salmon is born in its fine nursery, and is 

 wakened into life by the music of beautiful streams : it has 

 nurses and night-watchers, who hover over its cradle and guide 

 its infant ways ; but the herring, like the brat of some wander- 

 ing pauper, is dropped in the great ocean workhouse, and 

 cradled amid the hoarse roar of the ravening waters ; and 

 whether it lives or dies is a matter of no moment, and no one's 

 business. Herring mortality in its infantile stages is appalling, 

 and even in its old age, at a time when the rich man's fish is 

 protected from the greed of its enemies, the herring is doomed 

 to suffer the most. And then, to finish up with the same ap- 

 propriateness as they have lived, the venison of the waters is 

 daintily laid out on a slab of marble, while the vulgar but 

 beautiful herring is handled by a dirty costermonger, who 

 hurls it about in a filthy cart drawn by a wretched donkey. 

 At the hour of reproduction the salmon is guarded with 

 jealous care from the hand of man, whilst at the same season 

 the herring is offered up a wholesale sacrifice to the destroyer. 

 It is only at its period of spawning that the herring is fished. 

 How comes it to pass that what is a highly punishable crime 

 in the one instance is a government-rewarded merit in the 

 other ? To kill a gravid salmon is as nearly as possible felony ; 

 but to kill a herring as it rests on the spawning-bed is an act 

 at once meritorious and profitable ! 



Having given my readers a general idea of the fecundity 

 of fish, and the method of fructifying the eggs, and of the de- 

 velopment of these into fish for, of course, the process will 



