CAPRICE OF THE HEEEING. 175 



gun-firing. The Swedes say that the frequent firings of the 

 British ships in the neighbourhood of Gothenburg frightened 

 the fish away from the place. In a similar manner and with 

 equal truth it was said that they had been driven away fi-om the 

 Baltic by the firing of guns at the battle of Copenhagen ! 

 ■" Ordinary philosophy is never satisfied," says Dr. M'CuUoch, 

 " unless it can find a solution for everything ; and it is satisfied 

 for this reason with imaginary ones." Thus in Long Island, one 

 of the Hebrides, it was asserted that the fish had been driven 

 away by the kelp-manufacture, some imaginary coincidence having 

 been found between their disappearance and the establishment 

 of that business. But the kelp fires did not drive them away 

 from other shores, which they frequent and abandon indifferently, 

 without regard to that work. A member of the House of 

 Commons, in a debate on a Tithe Bill in 1835, 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 their privi- 

 leges and feelings, that not a single herring had ever since 

 visited that part of the shore ! 



The most prominent members of the Clupediw are the 

 common herring (Olupea harengus) j the sprat, or garvie (Olupea 

 sprattus) • and the pilchard, or gipsy herring (Glujoea pilchardus). 

 The other members of this family are the anchovy, and the Alice 

 and Twaite shad; but these, although afibrding material for 

 speculation to naturalists, are not of great commercial importance. 



Before concluding this chapter I wish to say a few words 

 about a point of herring economy, which has been already 

 alluded to in connection with the special commission appointed 

 to inquire into the trawling system— viz. as to the natural 

 enemies of the herriug, the most ruthless of which are un- 

 doubtedly of the fish kind, and whose destructive power, some 

 people assert, dwarfs into insignificance all that man can do 

 against the fish : — " Consider," say the Commissioners, " the 

 destruction of large herring by cod and liug alone. It is a very 

 common thing to find a codfish with six or seven large herrings, 

 of which not one has remained long enough to be digested, in 

 his stomach. If, in order to be safe, we allow a codfish only; 

 two herrings per diem, and let him feed on herrings for only 

 seven months in the year, then we have 420 herrings as his 

 allowance during that time; and fifty codfish will equal one 

 fisherman in destructive pewer. But the quantity of cod and 



