* 



226 NATURAL HISTORY [Fishes. 



GENUS JD07I. THE HERRING. 



Gen. Char. Eight branchiostegous rays ; the belly extremely sharp, and oftea 



seriated. 



Species 1. The Herring. 



Herring, Wil. Icth. 219. Rail Syn. Pise. 103. Clupea Harengus, Lin. Sys. 

 522. Brit. Zool. 284, tab. 17. Sib. Scot. 23. 



i 



ALL writers who have taken the least notice of the Natu- 

 ral History of the Orkney Islands, tell us of the numerous 

 swarms of herrings that are to be found amongst them. Mr 

 Wallace says, in his time, or some years before, many ships 

 from Fife frequented this country for catching of herring, but 

 that the skippers and seamen being at the battle of Kilsyth, 

 were almost all killed, since which time the trade failed ; and 

 indeed, these many years no herrings have been caught in 

 Orkney, not so much for want of them, as (I imagine) that 

 oddity, so firmly implanted in human nature, which compels 

 us to hunt through the whole world for things which we may 

 have at our own doors. 



I am well informed by seamen, they have met the herrings 

 on our coasts ; I have heard of them setting as far into our 

 sounds as Scalpa Bay. There are fishings of herrings all 

 round us, the Shetland Isles swarm with them in April, and 



