Fishes of the Angle. 1 2 7 



head also returns that the herring fishery has been a failure 

 in the loch, and states that this accounts for the blank 

 in the marriage column that quarter "No herring, no 

 wedding." 



That herrings have a king who leads them from sea 

 to sea is a wide-spread tradition, but, as a rule, their 

 monarch is some predaceous wretch who looks upon his 

 subjects merely as a perambulatory larder ; thus the 

 Chimsera, which in the north is called the herring king, 

 does no more for the herrings than live upon them. The 

 porpoise, by the way, is called both the "herring king" 

 and the " herring pig ; " but this creature's synonyms are 

 singularly numerous.) 



The "regicide" lampreys of Moore, that in Darwin, 

 " with lungs respiring steer, kiss the rude rocks, and suck 

 till they adhere," has only an indifferent character in folk- 

 lore. So Gay " Lamprey's a most immodest diet, You'll 

 neither wake nor sleep in quiet." 



The mackerel with its "tabbied sides," so delightful in 

 Jean Ingelow's vignette 



' ' And down we ran and lay upon the reef, 

 And saw the swimming infants, emerald green, 

 In separate shoals ; the scarcely turning ebb 

 Bringing them in ; while sleek and not intent 

 On chase, but taking that which came to hand, 

 The full-fed mackerel and the gurnet swam 

 Between." 



"The minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin, swimming 

 in mazy rings the pool within " (Joanna Baillie)-^ 



" The sudden rushing of the minnow shoal, 

 Scared from the shallows by my passing tread." 



" Dull as a mullet " was a Roman proverb, but in English 

 verse it lives as a comparison for constancy, and is the 

 " faithful" mullet 



