318 FISHES OF THE FIRTH OF FORTH. 



by the manufactory of kelp, some imaginary coincidence 

 having been found between their disappearance and the es- 

 tablishment of that business. But the kelp fires did not 

 drive them away from other shores, which they frequent 

 and abandon indifferently without regard to this work. It 

 has been a still favourite and popular fancy, that they were 

 driven away by firing of guns ; and hence this is not al- 

 lowed during the fishing season. A gun has scarcely been 

 fired in the Western Islands, or on the west coast, since 

 the days of Cromwell ; yet they have changed their places 

 many times in that interval. In a similar manner, and with 

 equal truth, it was said that they had been driven from the 

 Baltic by the battle of Copenhagen. Before the days of 

 guns and gunpowder, the Highlanders held that they 

 quitted coasts where blood had been shed : and thus ancient 

 philosophy is renovated. Steam-boats are now supposed to 

 be the culprits, since a reason must be found. To prove 

 their effect, Loch Fine, visited by a steam-boat daily, is 

 now their favourite haunt, and they have deserted other 

 lochs where steam-boats have never yet smoked. A mem- 

 ber of the House of Commons, in a debate on a tithe bill 

 lately stated, that a clergyman having obtained a living on 

 the coast of Ireland, signified his intention of taking the 

 tithe of fish, which was, however, considered to be so utterly 

 repugnant to the privileges and feelings of the finny race, 

 that not a single herring has ever since visited that part of 

 the shore." 



In June, July, and August, herrings are taken off the 

 Dunbar and Berwick coasts in considerable number, from 

 whence the Edinburgh market is abundantly supplied, 

 when scarcely a single herring is to be seen higher in the 

 Firth of a size worth the notice of the fishermen. 



Herrings are said to deposit their spawn towards the end 



