216 PHYSOSTOMI. 



unlucky individual on board, and by burning his effigy they believe that his 

 malign influence is got rid of. The most unpopular man in the ship is generally 

 pitched upon as the offending party. Sometimes two or three "pictures" are 

 burnt, one after the other, if luck is very bad. The practice is a very old one, 

 and is said to have taken its rise from a similar custom which prevailed among 

 the herring-fishers of Banffshire, by whom it was introduced on board of the 

 Peterhead whalers. 



In Norfolk (Notes and Queries, October 7th, 1865) we are told existed a 

 fancy that fleas and herrings come together. "Lawk, Sir," said an old fellow near 

 Cromer, " times is as you may look in my flannel shirt and scarce see a flea, and 

 then there ain't but a very few herrings ; but times that'll be right alive with 'em, 

 and then there's certain to be a sight of fish." Low, in his tour through the 

 Orkneys (1774), says that as much as £50 was paid for the first barrel of 

 herrings of the season that arrived from Shetland, this first instalment of the 

 herring market being regarded there as medicine. Red-finned ones appear to be 

 considered as omens of success on some parts of our coasts, and Mr. De Caux tells 

 us that as soon as one is perceived, it is taken from the net, carefully prevented 

 from touching anything made of wood, and passed round the scudding-pole as 

 many times as the fishermen desire to get lasts of herrings at their next haul. 



A Manx man going herring fishing dares not proceed to sea without taking a 

 dead wren in the boat for fear of disasters or storms. There exists a tradition 

 of a sea-spirit that haunted the herring -tack, attended always by storms. Finally 

 it assumed the form of a wren and flew away. It is imagined that the presence 

 of a dead wren makes all snug (McTaggart). 



Breeding. — The period at which the herring breeds is subject to great diversity, 

 inasmuch that some persons have questioned whether it may not do so twice in 

 one year. At Wick on the north-east coast of Scotland, Mr. Reid informed me 

 (January 18th, 1882) that early in January this year they were in a spawning 

 condition but no shotten ones as yet to be found, while they again spawn there 

 in August and early in September. The same has been observed in the Moray 

 Firth by Gordon. Herrings taken on the Ballantrae Bank off the Ayrshire coast 

 in February and March are either spawning or shotten. Herrings spawn on the 

 east coast of England and Scotland (taking the extreme dates) from the latter end 

 of May to December, that is, measuring from the Shetlands to the North Foreland ; 

 these Ballantrae herrings never spawn in August, but, on the contrary, begin 

 about the 1st of February, and the spawning goes on till the 1st of April. This 

 spawning bank is ten miles long and two miles broad. The average depth is ten 

 fathoms at low water (Buckland). 



On January 5th, 1882, I found that most of the herrings in the fish shops and 

 which had been received from Cornwall were shotten, others were full of milt or 

 roe. At the end of August, 1881, many were in full roe, and on December 13th 

 I first saw some shotten* ones, but was informed some had been received previously. 

 Mr. Dunn observed that all the herrings which visit the south coast of Devonshire 

 late in November, throughout December, and early in January are in spawning 

 condition. Six hundred thousand were landed in Plymouth one day last week 

 and the spawn was almost ready for extrusion in the whole of them (Land and 

 Water, Dec. 24th, 1881). A month later he found at Mevagissey that the spawn 

 was running from them. He considers that there are two herrings which spawn 

 on the Cornish coast, the smaller in December and January and which is not so 

 regular and certain a visitor as the larger one, which spawns in February and 

 March. The lesser ones seem to migrate along the coast, the larger ones to come 

 from the deep sea. Andrews (Feb. 14th, 1882), writing from Swanage, in Dorset- 

 shire, stated that he had two dozen brought to him five days previously all full- 

 roed, and many on the 14th, while the pier-master informed him that the first 

 signs of spawning were noticed yesterday, and the fishermen reckon, as a rule, 

 upon taking full fish more or less up to March. Mr. Wilcocks (Field, Feb. 



* M. Bertrand, in his article on Alose, published in 1776, remarked that" it appeared certain that 

 in the English Channel many herrings begin to spawn about November 25th, although in certain 

 years some are still found full in February." 



