164 THE HEEEING A LOCAL FISH. 



■with veneration and awe on the mighty power which originally 

 impressed on this useful body of His creatures the instinct that 

 directs and points out the course that blesses and enriches thesei 

 islands, which causes them at certain and invariable times to 

 quit the vast polar depths, and offer themselves to our expectant 

 fleets. This impression was given them that they might remove) 

 for the sake of depositing their spawn in warmer seas, that 

 would mature and vivify it more assuredly than those; of thei 

 frigid zone. It is not from defect of food that they set them- 

 selves in motion, for they come to us full and fat, and on their 

 return are almost universally observed to be lean and miserable." 



Happily, the naturalists of the present day know a vast deal 

 more of the natural history of the herring than Mr. Pennant 

 ever knew, and on the authority of the most able inquirers it 

 may be taken for granted that the herring is a local and not a 

 migratory fish. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the 

 herring is a native of our immediate seas, and can be caught all 

 the year round on the coasts of the three kingdoms. The fishing 

 begins at the island of Lewis, in the Hebrides, in the month of 

 May, and goes on as the year advances, tm in July it is being 

 prosecuted off the coast of Caithness; while in autumn and 

 winter we find large supplies of herrings at Yarmouth; and 

 there is a winter fishery in the Firth of Forth : moreover, this 

 fish is found in the south long before it ought to be there, if we 

 were to believe in Pennant's theory. It has been deduced, from 

 a consideration of the figures of the annual takes of many years^ 

 that the herring exists in distinct races, which arrive at maturity 

 month after month; and it is well known that the herrings 

 taken at Wick in July are quite different from those caught at 

 Dunbar in August or September : indeed, I would go further,, 

 and say that even at Wick each month has its changing shoal, 

 and that as one race ripens for capture another disappears, having 

 fulfilled its mission of procreation. It is certain that the 

 herrings of these different seasons vary considerably in size and 

 appearance; and it is very well known that the herrings of 

 different localities are marked by distinctive features. Thu% 

 the well-known Lochfyne herring is essentially different in itsi 

 flavour from that of the Firth of Forth, and those taken in the 

 Firth of Forth differ again in many particulars from those caught 

 off Yarmouth. 



In fact, the herring never ventures far from the spot where 

 it is taken, and its ^condition, when it is caught, is just an index 



