company to build this dam in the Kun, together 

 with the sole right to catch the herring, on con- 

 dition that yearly a certain number of the fish be 

 carted alive to the pond in order to spawn ; and 

 with this further condition, that every Wey- 

 mouth householder be allowed to buy four him 

 dred herring at twenty-five cents per hundred. 



A century ago four hundred herring to a 

 household might not have been many herring ; 

 but things have changed in a hundred years. 

 To-day no householder, saving the keeper of the 

 town house, avails himself of this generous offer. 

 I believe that a man with four hundred pickled 

 herring/ about his premises to-day would be 

 mobbed. Pickled herring, scaly, shrunken, 

 wrinkled, discolored, and strung on a stick in 

 the woodshed, undoes every other rank and bil- 

 ious preserve that I happen to know. One can 

 easily credit the saying, still current in the town, 

 that if a native once eats a Weymouth herring 

 he will never after leave the place. 



Usually the fish first to arrive in the spring 



are males. These precede the females, or come 



along with them in the early season, while the 



fish to arrive last are nearly all females. The 



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