UC8 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



compare for utility with that of the Glupeidce, or Herrings, 

 small in size but great in importance. In mile-long shoals, 

 often so thickly pressed that a spear cast into them would stand 

 upright in the living stream, the common herring appears 



annually on the coasts of north-west- 

 ern Europe, pouring out the horn 

 of abundance into all the lochs, 

 bays, coves, and fiords, from Norway 

 Hemiig. tQ i re i arL( j, and from Orcadia to Nor- 



mandy. Sea-birds without end keep thinning their ranks during 

 the whole summer ; armies of rorquals, dolphins, seals, shell-fish, 

 cods, and sharks devour them by millions, and yet so countless 

 are their numbers, that whole nations liye upon their spoils. 



As soon as the season of their approach appears, fleets of herring 

 boats leave the northern ports, provided with drift-nets, about 

 1200 feet long. The yarn is so thick that the wetted net- sinks 

 through its own weight, and need not be held down by stones 

 attached to the lower edge, for it has been found that the 

 herring is more easily caught in a slack net. The upper edge 

 is suspended from the drift-rope by various shorter and smaller 

 ropes, called buoy ropes, to which empty barrels are fastened, 

 and the whole of the floating apparatus is attached by long 

 ropes to the ship. Fishing takes place only during the night, 

 for it is found that the fish strike the nets in much greater 

 numbers when it is dark than while it is light. The darkest 

 nights, therefore, and particularly those in which the surface of 

 the water is ruffled by a fresh breeze, are considered the most 

 favourable. To avoid collisions, each boat is furnished with one 

 or two torches. From off the beach at Yarmouth, where often 

 several thousand boats are fishing at the same time, these num- 

 berless lights, passing to and fro in every direction, afford a most 

 lively and brilliant spectacle. The meshes of the net are exactly 

 calculated for the size of the herring, wide enough to receive the 

 head as far as behind the gill-cover, but not so narrow as to allow 

 the pectoral fins to pass. Thus the poor fish, when once en- 

 tangled, is unable to move backwards- or forwards, and remains 

 sticking in the net, like a bad logician on the horns of a dilemma, 

 until the fisherman hauls it on board. In this manner a single 

 net sometimes contains so vast a booty, that it requires all the 

 authority of a Cuvier or a Valenciennes to make us believe the 



