THE MiaEATION THEORY. 163 



impression of St. Peter's thumb is still to be seen oa tbe haddock ; 

 " Moby Dick," a Tom Sayers among fighting whales, still ranges , 

 through the squid fields of the Pacific Ocean ; and I know an 

 old fisherman who once borrowed a comb from a polite mermaid ! 

 Not very long ago, for instance, the old theory of the migrar 

 tion of the herring to and from the Arctic Regions was gravely 

 revived in an unexpected quarter, as if that romance of fiish-life 

 was stUl believed by modern naturalists to be the chief episode 

 in the natural history of Glupea harmgus. The original migration 

 story — which was invented by Pennant, or rather was constructed 

 by him from the theories of fishermen — old as it is, is worthy 

 of being briefly recapitulated, as affording a good point of view 

 for a consideration of the natural and economic history of the 

 herring as now ascertained : it was to the effect that in the in- 

 accessible seas of the high northern latitudes herrings were found 

 in overwhelming abundance, securing within the icy Arctic Circle 

 a bounteous feeding-ground, and at the same time a quiet and 

 safe retreat from their numerous enemies. At the proper season, 

 inspired by some commanding impulse, vast bodies of this fish 

 gathered themselves together into one great army, and in numbers 

 far exceeding the power of imagination to picture departed for 

 the waters of Europe and America. The particular division of 

 this great heer, which was destined annually to repopulate the 

 British seas, and afford a plenteous food-store for the people, was 

 said to arrive at Iceland about March, and to be of such amaz- 

 ing extent as to occupy a surface more than equal to the dimen- 

 sions of Great Britain and Ireland, but subdivided, by a happy 

 instinct, into battalions five or six miles in kngth and three or 

 four in breadth, each line or column being led, according to the 

 ideas of fishermen, by herrings (probably the Alice and Twaite 

 shad) of more than ordinary size and sagacity. These heaven- 

 directed strangers were next supposed to strike on the Shetland 

 Islands, where they divided of themselves, as we are told ; one 

 division taking along the west side of Britain, whilst the other 

 took the east side, the result being an adequate and weU-divided 

 supply of this fine fish in all our larger seas and rivers, as the 

 herrings penetrated into every bay, and filled all our inland lochs 

 from Wick to Yarmquth. Mr. Pennant was not contented with 

 the development of this myth, but evidently felt constrained to 

 give idat to his invention by inditing a few moral remarks just 

 by way of a toig. " Were we," he says, " inclined to consider 

 this migration of the herring in a moral light, we might reflect 



