FISH COMMUNITIES. 275 



ling fish dashed about in mid-water, the prowling " dogs" busUy 

 preying on the shoals of herring supposed to be swimming near ; 

 the brilliant shrimp flashing through the crowd like a meteor, the 

 elegant saithe keeping them company ; the whole being over- 

 shadowed by a few whales, and kept in awe by a dozen or so of 

 sharks ! Nothing can be more different than the reality of the- 

 water-world, which is colonised quite as systematically as the earth. 

 Particular shoals of herring, for instance, gather off particular 

 counties ; the Lochfyne herring, as I have mentioned in the 

 account of the herring-fishery, differs from the herring of the 

 Caithness coast or that of the Firth of Forth ; and any 'cute 

 fishmonger .can tell a Tweed salmon from a Tay one. The 

 herring at certain periods gather in gigantic shoals, the chief 

 members of the Gadidse congregate on vast sand-banks, and the 

 whales occasionally roam about in schools ; while the Pleuro- 

 nectidse occupy sandy places in the bottom of the sea. We 

 have all heard of the great cod-banks of Newfoundland, of the 

 fish comriiunity at Eockall ; then is there not the Nymph Bank, 

 near Dublin, celebrated for its haddocks 1 have we not also the 

 Faroe fishing-ground, the Dogger Bank, and other places with a 

 numerous fish population ? There are wonderful diversities of 

 life in the bosom of the deep ; and there is beautiftd scenery of 

 hiU and plain, vegetable and rock, and mountain and valley. 

 There are shallows and depths suited to different aspects of life, 

 and there is life of all kinds teeming in that mighty world of 

 waters, and the fishes live 



' ' A cold sweet silver life, wrapped in round waves, 

 Quickened with touches of transporting fear." 



The prawn and the shrimp are ploughed in innumerable 

 quantities from the shallow waters that lave the shore. The 

 shrimper may be seen any day at work, pushing his little net 

 before him. To reach the more distant sandbanks he requires a 

 boat ; but on these he captures his prey with greater facility, 

 and richer hauls rewards his labour than when he plies his 

 putting-net close inshore. The shrimper, when he captures a 

 sufficient quantity, proceeds to boil them ; and till they undergo 

 that process they are not edible. The shrimp is " the 'Undine' 

 of the waters," and seems possessed by some aquatic devU, it 

 darts about with such intense velocity. Like the lobster and 

 the crab, the prawn periodically changes its skin ; and its exer- 

 tions to throw off its old clothes are really as wonderful as those 



