THE HERRING. 283 



the Scotch coast, but particularly on the north of the 

 entrance of the Firth of Forth. That Firth, as it is 

 deep water, and without any shallow or interruption, 

 is a favourable resort of herrings in the autumn and 

 early part of winter. They come from the deep water 

 in immense shoals or masses, which not only occupy 

 a great surface of the sea, but extend to a considerable 

 depth. For this reason they prefer the deep water, 

 and, generally speaking, avoid the shoal coasts ; and 

 when they do get entangled upon one, great numbers 

 are wrecked. 



The rocky promontory at the east end of the county 

 of Fife, off which there lies an extensive reef or rock, 

 sometimes has that effect ; and there have been seas in 

 which, when the difficulties of the place were augmented 

 by a strong wind at south-east, that carried breakers 

 upon the reef and a heavy surf along the shore, the 

 beach for many miles has been covered with a bank of 

 herrings several feet in depth, which, if taken and 

 salted when first left by the tide, would have been 

 worth many thousands of pounds ; but which, as there 

 w r as not a sufficient supply of salt in the neighbourhood, 

 were allowed to remain putrefying upon the beach, 

 until the farmers found leisure to cart them away as 

 manure. The herring is a remarkably delicate fish, 

 and dies almost the instant that it is out of the water, 

 or gets the slightest injury in it ; and these circum- 

 stances, while they render the stranded shoals a much 

 more frequent, abundant, and easy prey than if they 

 were more tenacious of life, cause them to putrefy much 

 sooner. One of those strandings took place in and 

 around the harbour of the small town of Crail, only a 



