SALMON-FISHERY OF SCOTLAND. 29 



her government for a common object, allow males only to exist 

 for the purpose of impregnating females, who preserve the 

 society, and under whose government they send forth swarms, 

 who readily place themselves under the protection of man. In 

 the geometrical construction of their cells, the secretion of wax 

 from their bodies, the coUecting of food, and the care of the 

 brood, there is a series of results which it requires a strong 

 reason to follow, and which are the consequences of perfect 

 instincts." 



But what can be more wonderful than the instincts of her- 

 rings ? — the fry, scarcely two inches in length, proceeding from 

 the various lochs and banks around the kingdom, all in one 

 direction, to the Polar Sea — congregating there in one immense 

 mass, in separate and distinct tribes — returning altogether in 

 that mass, regularly, at a stated period of time, yearly ; — ^this 

 immense mass, on reaching our coast, forming itseK into two 

 divisions — ^the one taking the west, the other the east coast ; 

 and each tribe so admirably, so systematically stationed in so 

 vast a mass, that, when it divides, all the tribes belonging to 

 the lochs and banks on the east coast, should fall, with perfect 

 regularity, into the one division, and the tribes of the west 

 coast into the other : a tribe belonging to the Moray Frith 

 never following the western division to Lochfyne or the Isle of 

 Man, nor the tribes of those parts straying with the eastern 

 division to the Moray Frith or Yarmouth.* Let the im- 

 mensity of the shoal observed by Provost Finlay, sixty miles in 

 length, and from twelve to fifteen in breadth, all in one mass, 

 be only contemplated, and then the marvellous arrangement of 

 the tribes in this mighty shoal will be duly appreciated. When 

 shall all the arcana — all the wonders of nature be developed 

 to man ? Not till thousands and thousands of years shall have 

 rolled over his head — if ever. 



We have heard it said that herrings sometimes desert a loch 

 for years and go elsewhere. We do not believe it, any more 

 than we believe that salmon can forsake their river. It would 



* If this were not the case, while the superior herrings of Lochfyne were 

 found there one year, the inferior tribes of the Moray Frith, or Loohroag, might 

 be found there the next. 



