PERIODICAL VISITS OF THE HERRING. 57 



lochs is the mouths of July, August, and September. The 

 winter herrings generally appear in No\ ember, and con- 

 tinue on the coast till the middle of January, and in some 

 localities later. Although no particular loch can be pointed 

 out where their appearance every year is certain, yet Loch 

 Eribol in Sutherlandshire ; Loch Inver, Loch Kennard, 

 Great Loch Broom, Little Loch Broom, Loch Ewe, and 

 LochTorridon in Eoss-shire ; and Loch Urn, LochMoidart, 

 and Loch Kintra in Inverness-shire ; and Loch Linnhe, and 

 Loch Craignish in Argyleshire, are frequently well sup- 

 plied. The time of their resort to any particular loch in 

 any particular month or year cannot be predicted by any 

 one. A writer well versed in the subject says, " The 

 continuance of a shoal in any loch contiguous to the 

 Miuch for eight days together is uncertain. It often 

 happens, that after a very successful fishing for three or 

 four nights in the lochs along that line of coast, the her- 

 rings retire so suddenly to the Minch that not a vestige 

 of them is to be found in a loch or bay for many weeks." — 

 ("Mackenzie's Essay," ZT^'^A. andAyTic. Soc. Trans., vol. ii. 

 p. 319). Another writer states, " That the Great Minch 

 (the sea which separates the Long Island from the main- 

 land), from the middle of June till the end of September, 

 is often crowded with herrings of the best quality." * 

 North- West Highlands — Lewis Islands. — The her-- 



* As a remarkable circumstance connected with tlie herring, it is worth 

 recording, that in March 1817 young herrings of about tliree inches in 

 length fell in a shower near the ferry of Shien, Argylesliiro ; another 

 shower, but of full-sized good herrings, fell near Melford House, in the same 

 county, in 1821 ; and on the 9th February 1830, a number of small her- 

 rings, some of them alive, fell on the island of Alva, Argyleshire. In the 

 last instance, the day was calm, with a steady even-down pour of rain, and 

 the distance from the nearest part of the seashore fully half a mile. Tlie 

 conclusion is, that they must have been projected by waterspouts.— Ca/e- 

 donian Mercury, April 1, 1830. 



