SOFT-FINNED ABDOMINAL FISHES. 3%7 



tribe, and the banks of Newfoundland is its favourite 

 retreat, where they are taken in such immense quanti- 

 ties as to afford all Europe a sufficiency to eat. The 

 English have stages erected all along the shore for the 

 purpose of salting and drying this valuable fish ; for, 

 though they regularly frequent our coasts, their number 

 is not proportioned to the quantity consumed. 



The haddock, the zckiting, and the mackarel, are by 

 many thought rather to migrate horn, fear than choice; 

 and it is to the destructive appetites of the larger kinds 

 of fish (which drive them towards our shores), that we 

 are to ascribe the annual migrations which they regu- 

 larly take. 



But of all the animals that take these adventurous 

 voyages, the herring and pilchards are known to be of 

 the greatest extent ; and in Chesapeak Bay their an- 

 nual migration is so astonishing, that they absolutely 

 become a nuisance to the shores. The body which 

 comes upon our coasts begins- in April to appear off the 

 Shetland Isles, and by the middle of June they collect 

 in such immense shoals as totally to alter the appear- 

 ance of the sea, and extend in distinct columns for the 

 distance of five or six miles. The pilchard, which dif- 

 fers but little from the herring, makes the coast of 

 Cornwall its principal resort, and is found on those 

 shores in such astonishing numbers, that from twelve 

 to fifteen hundred barrels have been filled by a single 

 draught. This fishery not only employs great numbers 

 of men at sea, and is the means of training them to 

 naval affairs, but affords occupation to the women and 

 children, either in salting the fish or mending the nets. 

 The poor are fed with the superfluity of the capture, 

 the offals serve as manure for the land, the fisherman 

 obtains a comfortable subsistence, and the merchant is. 



y 4 



