THE COMMON HERRING. 445 



OF THE HERRING TRIBE. 



THESE fish inhabit the depths of the ocean. They feed on mol 

 luscae, and various kinds of small crustaceous animals, and shell-fish. 

 Three of the species, the Common Herring, the Shad, and the An 

 chovy, were known to the ancients, and, as articles of food, were held 

 by them in considerable esteem. It is not known that any of these 

 fish are natives of fresh waters. Most of the species are migratory 

 and generally in immense shoals : and most, if not all of them, are 

 excellent food. 



THE COMMON HERRING. 



Herrings are found in the greatest abundance in the high northern 

 latitudes. In those inaccessible seas that are covered with ice for a 



THE HERRINQ. 



great part of the year, they find a quiet and sure retreat from all their 

 numerous enemies. The quantity of food which those seas supply is 

 immensely great. 



Thus remotely situated, and defended by the icv rigor of the cli- 

 mate, they live at ease, and multiply beyond expression, issuing tueiice 

 in such shoals, that, were all the men in the world to be loaded with 

 Herrings, they could not carry off the thousandth part of them. Their 

 enemies, however, are extremely numerous. All the monsters of -the 

 deep find them an easy prey ; and, in addition to these, th ^immense 

 flocks of sea-fowl that inhabit the polar regions, watch their outset, 

 and spread devastation on all sides. 



In their outset, this immense swarm of living creatures is divided 

 into distinct columns, each five or six miles in length, and three or 

 four in breadth, and in their progress they even make the water 

 ripple before them. 



In the month of June they are found about the Shetland islands, 

 whence they proceed to the Orkneys, and, then dividing, they surround 

 the islands of great Britain and Ireland, and unite again, off the Land's 

 End, in the British Channel, in September. From this part of the 

 ocean the great united body steers south-west, and is not found any 

 more on that side, or in the Atlantic, until the same time the ensuing 

 year, but next appear off the American coasts. They arrive ia 



