THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 349 



herrings at a distance during the daytime by the clouds of 

 birds of prey which accompany them, devouring all those 

 which approach the surface of the waves, and at night by 

 the long luminous track which stretches over the surface 

 of the sea as far as the migration extends.^ 



The tunny and mackerel also perform similar voyages. 



1 We do not wish to make an attack here upon an opinion which is widely 

 spread among fishermen, but we must say that the fact itself is very doubtful. 

 Two of the most celebrated ichthyologists of our epoch, Bloch and Noel, deny 

 these extraordinary migrations of the herring. It is supposed, perhaps on better 

 grounds, that this fish always haunts the places where it is seen only at a certain 

 period of the year, but that it lives at the deepest jjarts of the sea, and only comes 

 to the surface at the period of reproduction, and for a short time. 



Fishing in these shoals of herring began at a very remote period. In the 

 chronicles of the monastery of Evesham, which date from the beginning of the 

 eighth century, we find them already mentioned. Different documents show that 

 in the eleventh century men pursued this calling in France. At one time the 

 principal source of the wealth and maritime power of Holland lay in the herring 

 fishery. This nation was so sensible of the fact, that a statue was reared to 

 Buckalz, who taught the art of salting this fish, and whose memory was honoured 

 by a visit which Charles V. paid to his tomb. At the time when this fishery was 

 most flourishing, the Batavian republic sent yearly 2000 ships to it, and em- 

 ployed more than 400,000 souls in equipping the fleet and in the fish-trade. The 

 Dutch estimated the advantages it brought them so highly, that they expressed 

 their feelings in a popular proverb; Amsterdam, they used to say, is built upon 

 herring-lieads. A prodigious quantity of these fish is taken every j'ear for the 

 use of Europe alone. To the north of Bergen from 500,000 to 600,000 barrels 

 are caught yearly, equivalent to more than 300 million fish. In 1862, 6.59,000 

 tons of herrings were caught off' Norway in a single season, the export of which 

 brought to the country ten millions of francs. 



[In the same year (1862) there were caught off the coast of Scotland and cured 

 830,904 barrels of herrings; and as each barrel contains 700 fish, the number of 

 herrings taken and cured would amount to above 570 millions. — Tr.1 



