26 HABITS AND APPEARANCE IN THE SEA 



making a successful capture of herrings. The nets having 

 been thrown overboard, if there is no shoal near the spot, 

 or no great appearance of herrings, the fishermen take in 

 part of the net to see if there is any taken; and, if there 

 is a scant appearance, they take up the nets and proceed to 

 some other place. They generally have a watch of one or 

 two of their number at the bows of the boat, and in some 

 localities they may be hunting after the herrings, either 

 sailing or rowing, a considerable part of the night. Here 

 and there they see, perhaps, one or two herrings as they 

 pass along darting aside like masses of fire, then they see 

 them more closely together, and in certain states of the 

 atmosphere they are guided by the reflection of the light 

 from the herrings " as if there were a fire burning under 

 the waves." When this occurs, the fishermen throw the 

 nets out with every chance of success. The net is gene- 

 rally taken in by dawn, and nothing can exceed the 

 brilliancy and beauty of the tints of the herring when 

 taken out of the sea. Most of the herrings appear to 

 have been killed in the nets, as very few come into the 

 boat alive. The nets form a straight line, when in the 

 sea, of considerable length, the boat being generally at- 

 tached to the one end (in other cases the nets are 

 anchored at each end), it is almost difficult to understand 

 why the herring, or any other fish, gets entangled in a 

 wall of netting, and why, with the power of vision it 

 possesses, it does not move away from it. The mesh 

 is square, and is, or ought to be, exactly one inch, 

 being adapted to the size of the herring, which is gene- 

 rally caught by the head. It frequently occurs, that 

 while there are considerable numbers of herrings, at cer- 

 tain times they do not come into the nets ; and, accord- 

 ing to the language of the fishermen, " they do not 



