242 CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERIIING--FISHERY. 



very thickest of the fight. ' Many crews were making 

 large captures, hauling in their long extended nets glit- 

 tering with fish ' as the dew of the morning/ or, as one 

 of our sailors expressed it, ' going over the gunnel like a 

 white horse ;' the surface of the sea seemed at this time 

 dotted all over with small dark spots. These were the 

 boats with their sails pulled down. As the nets are hauled 

 they are also shaken, so as to cause all those herrings that 

 are loosely meshed to drop into the boat, the rest being 

 disentangled when they reach the harbour. While the 

 boats lay at anchor by their nets they looked like motion- 

 less specks upon the water ; and the efi'ect was singular 

 and very striking when they suddenly hoisted their can- 

 vas, as if emerging from the bosom of the deep, and shot 

 away towards the shore, covering the now brightened sur- 

 face far and near with a multitudinous array of sombre 

 coloured sails. The same law regulates the morning as 

 the evening fishery, and they are not allowed to cast again 

 after sunrise. We then returned to Wick Bay, and for an 

 hour we enjoyed the sight of the countless boats returning 

 laden with their scaly treasures." 



FISHERY CONVENTION ACT, 22d AUGUST 1843, 6 & 7 VICT. 

 CAP. 79. 



Disputes having arisen in the English Channel as to the 

 rights and boundaries of the oyster fisheries of the coasts 

 of France and South Britain, it was resolved by the Govern- 

 ments of the two nations that a convention should be 

 entered into, and the same was signed on the 2d August 

 1839. And to regulate the same, as well as the cod and 

 ling and other fisheries, a commission was appointed, in 

 terms of said convention, " to prepare a set of regulations 



