GREA T BRITAIN. 257 



arc found ; storms may drive them from shallow to deeper 

 water ; and the herring season commences and also ter- 

 minates earlier in the north than it does in the south ; but 

 much more than this facts scarcely warrant us to assume. 



The Scotch Meteorological Society observe that the 

 results of examining the daily register of thermometers 

 used in twenty fishery districts on the east coast go to 

 show a close relation between the fluctuations of the 

 catches and changes of temperature, wind, sunshine, 

 cloud, thunder and other weather phenomena. Maximum 

 catches having been recorded when the temperature of the 

 sea was about 55*5 degrees, while thunderstorms, if wide- 

 spread, were followed for days with small catches over the 

 area which had been covered by them. 



Mr. Cleghorn concluded an interesting report upon 

 these fisheries with a comprehensive summary ; some of 

 which were as follows : That there were fishing stations 

 some years ago on the Scotch coast which are now 

 exhausted, a steady increase having taken place in their 

 produce up to a certain point, then violent fluctuations, and 

 finally extinction. The races of herring near our large 

 cities have disappeared first ; and in districts where the tides 

 are rapid, as among islands and in lochs, where the fishing 

 grounds are circumscribed, the fishings are precarious and 

 brief; while, on the other hand, extensive sea-boards 

 having slack tides, with little accommodation for boats, 

 are surer and of longer continuance as fishing stations. 



I will now refer to the herring fisheries along the north- 

 east and east coast of Scotland, respecting which we are 

 told that " at the beginning of the present century herrings 

 were so abundant along the north-east coast of Scotland, 

 and came so close inshore that numbers of them were 

 caught by people standing upon the rocks, having no other 



VOL. i. E. i. s 



