CHAP, vii.] THE SILLOCK-FISHERY. 



Pletironectidse. There are upwards of a dozen kinds of flat fish 

 tliat are popular for table purposes. One of these is a very 

 large fish known as the holibut (Hippoglopus vulgaris), which 

 has been found in the northern seas to attain occasionally a 

 weight of from three to four hundred pounds. One of this 

 species of fish of extraordinary size was brought to the Edin- 

 burgh market in April 1828 ; it was seven feet and a half 

 long, and upwards of three feet broad, and it weighed three 

 hundred and twenty pounds ! The flavour of the holibut is 

 not very delicate, although it has been frequently mistaken 

 for turbot by those not conversant with fish history. 



They continue about said isles for a few weeks, and in the months of 

 September and October, and sometimes longer, they hover about the 

 small isles, when the fishermen catch them for the sake of their liver, 

 which contains oil. One boat of twelve feet of keel will sometimes 

 catch as many as thirty bushels in a part of a day, and this year (1864), 

 owing to the high price of oil, each bushel was worth about Is. 6d. 

 The fish itself is taken to the dung-hill when the take is not great, but 

 when there is a great take the liver is taken out and the fish thrown into 

 the sea. There are no Acts of Parliament against using the net ; but 

 after some time the sillocks leave the isles and draw to the shore, 

 where there are any edge-places. It is allowed that the island of 

 Whalsey is about the best place in Shetland for the fish to draw to, but 

 whenever they come there, the proprietor, Mr. Bruce, will not allow 

 " pocking," as a week would finish them all ; but the people must all fish 

 with the rod, so that each man may get as many as keep him a day or 

 two. The " pocking" sets them all out, but the fish don't mind the rod ; 

 it is very picturesque to see perhaps fifty men sitting round the basin 

 with their rods, and the sillocks covering about a rood of the sea, vary- 

 ing from three to six feet deep, and so close together that you would 

 think they could not get room to stir. They will continue plentiful 

 till the end of April, at which time they take to the deep sea ; and 

 when they make their apearance the following year they are about four 

 times larger, and are then called piltocks. But these are only taken 

 by the rod. Mr. Bruce just says, If you pock, you cannot be my tenant ; 

 so they must either give up the one or the other, and by that wav of 

 doing every household has as many of these small tisli as tlicv can make 

 use of durinu the winter." 



