168 AN INTERESTING FISH. 



herring ; whether they have secured a boat-load or only a 

 single barrel. The fishing is all a lottery. One boat 

 may not secure sixty fish ; another may be loaded up to 

 the gunwale. For with the drift-net you cannot obtain 

 your fish if they do not strike against it, and involve 

 themselves in its meshes. Now the net may float above 

 the shoal, or it may have sunk below them, or it may have 

 been shot at some place where the Clupeidse are not. 

 Thus, one lucky boat may complete its two hundred crans 

 in the first week or so of the season, while the others do 

 not secure fifty all the time the fishery lasts. 



The reader, we hope, will now be of M. Lacepede's 

 opinion, that everything connected with this fish is full of 

 interest : " Le hareng est une de ces productions dont 

 Temploi decide de la destinee des empires." He will say, 

 with Badham, that all men who tar their fingers in the 

 " clupeaii service " are public benefactors, and the agents 

 of unmixed good. They add to our food-resources and 

 our national strength. " Men-of-war and merchantmen," 

 writes Sir Roger L'Estrange, " consume men and breed 

 none ; the collier brings up now and then an apprentice, 

 but still spends more than he makes ; the only and com- 

 mon nursery of seamen is this fishery, where every buss 

 brings up (it may be) six, eight, or ten new men every 

 year, so that our fishery is just as necessary to our navi- 

 gation as to our safety and well-being." 



