CLTJPEID^E. 213 



food, although useful as bait for other fishes, and which appear to be the forerunners 

 of the summer fish, as they grow better, larger, and fatter as the season advance's 

 until they are in perfection about July and August, spawning about the end of the 

 latter month or early in September, after which they disappear until the succeeding 

 January (Reid MSS.). If we turn to the Herring Fishery Report of 1878, we are 

 informed that " it is a very remarkable circumstance that the yield of the fishery 

 at Wick began to decline at the very period at which the produce of the Aberdeen- 

 shire fisheries began to increase" (Ixiii). Here Mitchell, who wrote in 1864, observed 

 they are at first so small that the nets cannot catch them, but they begin to be of 

 sufficient size in July (at this time the mesh of the nets was not less than one 

 inch between knot and knot).* 



In the fourteen yeai's from 1849 to 1862, 1003 boats were annually employed in 

 fishing at Wick with an average catch per boat of 133 barrels. During this period 

 no winter fishing was carried on : it now commenced, and in the fourteen years from 

 1863 to 1876, 885 boats were annually similarly employed, and the average catch per 

 boat was 108 barrels. Mr. Reid tells us that in 1883 great success has again 

 attended the Wick herring fisheries in 1880 (the heaviest fisheries), the average 

 to the same date (end of August) was 170 crans a boat, but in 1883 it has risen to 

 230 crans average to the 518 boats, but the fish were at least 70 miles from 

 land. Further to the south, however, a different account was given at the same 

 date, for after an exceptionally poor season the herring fishery at Aberdeen was 

 brought to a close in Sejitember, when an average catch of 89 crans for 463 boats 

 was announced, as against 166| for 433 boats last year. Fish having been scarce 

 and the weather unfavourable. The herring shoals further north have been much 

 larger, and less distant from shore. It was noticed that the Wick Chamber of 

 Commerce for some years gave a premium to the fisherman who landed the first 

 herrings of the season : thus fishing gradually changed from July to the third week 

 in June, the quality at first being small and mostly only fit for bait. This, it is stated, 

 prematurely disturbs the shoals and injures the future prospect of the fishing. | 



Herring shoals appear on the north-west coast of Scotland at the beginning or 

 middle of May when during that and the subsequent month they are mostly 

 "matties." The great fishery there is in the Minch between Long Island and the main 

 land, continuing until the commencement of July. While on the east coast the chief 

 fishery begins about the middle or end of July until the end of September, the 

 fish being full of roe, while the fishery at Loch Fyne and the south-west coast of 

 Scotland coincides with that on the east, the fish likewise being in a similar 

 condition. Off the coast of Ayrshire on the Ballantrae Bank the great fishery is 

 during February and March. A short supply of summer herrings, observes 

 Holdsworth, has been frequently accounted for by the pi'eceding fishery having 

 been largely worked. On the other hand it has been contended that the summer 

 fish are often as abundant as they ever were before the spring fishery came into 

 fashion. Recent experience, however, does not support this statement, as with a 

 more or less successful series of spring fisheries, the summer herrings have been 

 exceedingly scarce for the last seven years. (Deep-sea Fishing, 1873, p. 123.) 



In the Moray Firth (Gordon, Zool. 1852, x, p. 3480) these fish are generally 

 sought for during six weeks subsequent to the middle of July. They gradually 

 move westwards and congregate on the far-famed Gwillam Bank, about half a 

 square mile in size and opposite the Bay of Cromarty. A storm sends them away 

 and they do not return that year. About the middle of August they swim lower 

 in the water and generally disappear in September. He likewise alludes to 

 winter herrings, a stronger and larger variety with fewer scales. In looking at 



* M. De Caux observes that for the purpose of capturing herrings the mesh of the nets since 

 18G4 has diminished oil 1 1 io Norfolk coast to forty or forty-four to the yard: ten to twenty years ago 

 five-sixths of the catch were full fish, hut for the last ten years the proportion has not been above 

 two-fifths, due to the change iu the mesh of the net; these immature herrings will take the salt but 

 they will not keep. 



f The same opinion seems to have found favour at Peterhead, Aberdeen, and Montrose, that 

 the early fishing has a bad effect on the off-shore banks increased by the repeal of the enactments 

 against garvie fishing, which occupation commences in Norember and occasionally lusts until March. 



