133 



NATURAL HISTORY, 



barrels are said to be prepared for exportation every year. Each barrel contains 550 full-grown fish. 

 The female contains about 70,000 eggs, and spawns in the early part of November. The spawn is 

 deposited on the sea bed, and is discharged in a mass, which adheres firmly to the rocks. The young 

 are found abundant in a fortnight to three weeks, arid in six weeks are three inches long. The 

 Herring fishery dates back to Anglo-Saxon timss, when towns on the east coast paid their taxes in 

 Herrings. Yarmouth cannot be said, like Amsterdam, to be built on herring bones, but is a well- 

 known centre of Herring industry. The charter of the town requires the corporation to deliver to the 

 sheriffs of Norwich a hundred Herrings baked into twenty-four pasties, that they might be delivered 

 to the lord of the manor of East Carlton. The fish are easily alarmed by noise, and rush away to a 

 distance of five or six feet, but rarely spring in the water like Pilchards. The fish are usually sold to 

 professional curers, who prepare them in a variety of ways, which are well known in Britain, and 

 the curing alone gives employment to many thousands of people. On the continent the Herring is 

 also highly prized, and sometimes is preserved moist, with spices, salt, and other condiments, and is 

 often eaten uncooked. 



The Herring fishery is usually carried 011 by means of the drift-net, which is made of cotton or 



hemp twine. These nets are largely made at Bridport. The cotton nets are the more flexible, and are 



_^.__. prepared for use by being first soaked in linseed oil, 



and then either boiled in oak-bark liquor for two or 

 three days, or a preparation of catechu, but they are 

 sometimes dressed with coal-tar instead. The net 

 consists of one piece, which is thirty yards long. It 

 is fastened to a small line about eighteen or twenty 

 yards long, so that the netting is slack. The back of 

 the net is fastened at short intervals to a small double 

 rope, which encloses pieces of cork, so as to keep that 

 part of the net uppermost. A single vessel, according 

 to her size, may use from eighty to a hundred anil 

 thirty of such nets. They are connected together in 

 succession, and often extend for a length of a mile, or 

 a mile and a quarter. The meshes are about an 



inch, or rather more, in diameter, but in old nets the size becomes less. The twine nets 

 last longer than those of cotton, are generally barked once or twice in the season, but never 

 tarred. A fishing boat carries two sets of nets one with many cork floats, to be used when 

 the fish are near the top of the water, and the other with few corks, which is used when the fish are 

 swimming at some depth. The whole of the train of nets is made fast to the vessel by a moderately 

 strong rope, technically called a warp. These nets are used almost entirely at night. The vessels 

 employed are all small, the largest being about thirty-six tons. The number of men in the larger 

 boats is usually from nine to eleven. When the fish are plentiful the nets remain but a short time in 

 the water are hauled in and shot out again. The fish, when got 011 board, fall on the deck, are 

 sprinkled with salt, and are stowed away in compartments called the " wings " of the hold. If fish have 

 been plentiful the mast is put up when the night's fishing is over, the vessel makes sail, and returns 

 to port ; but if fish are scarce, the smack seeks fresh ground for another night's work. Good fishing 

 ground is generally indicated by the abundance of sea-birds, Dog-fish, and Cetacea, which follow the 

 fishes, and feed upon them. Some tropical species of Herring are poisonous. 



A good deal of difference of opinion has prevailed as to whether the Whitebait is a distinct 

 species. Yarrell believed it to be distinct, as do Jenyns and Couch, but Dr. Giinther remarks 

 emphatically that all the examples of Whitebait that he has examined are young Herrings. 



This fish is taken in the Thames from April to September, and abounds especially off the 

 Northern coast. The net with which they are caught has a mouth about three feet square. The bag- 

 end of the net is very narrow, and the mesh of the net is very small. The boat is moored in the tide- 

 way, where the water is from twenty to thirty feet deep. The small end of the net is from time to 

 time taken into the boat and untied, when its contents are shaken out. 



The Sprat (Clupea spratius) is a very distinct species from the Herring. It is well known on the 



HEKUIXG. 



