3480 Fishes. 



A List of the Fishes that have been found in the Moray Firth, and 

 in the Fresh Waters of the Province of Moray. By the Rev. 

 George Gordon. 



(Continued from page 3462). 



The Herring, Clupea Harengus. (Sgadan,-Scattan). There are 

 three of the salt-water species in this list, which, far above any others, 

 engage the time and attention of the native fishermen, — the herring, 

 the haddock, and the cod. And perhaps the first of these three again 

 stands, to the other two, in the same relatively high position in their 

 estimation, as the three taken together stand towards the whole finny 

 tribe. The time of the herring- fishery is their harvest season. Dur- 

 ing the other seasons of the year they prepare for it by day — they 

 dream of it by night. Much of the winter is passed by their families 

 in weaving and in mending nets ; the spring in overhauling and re- 

 pairing their boats ; while the engagements they may form with the 

 curers, the prices they may obtain, the quantities they may net, and 

 the curing-stations they may fish at, perchance far from home, rouse 

 a thousand hopes and fears in the breasts of the herring- fishers of the 

 Moray Firth.* The vast importance of the herring fishery to this as 

 well as to other classes of the community, must be allowed when, for 

 example, last year (1851), which as to quantity was an average sea- 

 son, but as to price far below what most of those engaged had at one 

 time experienced, " the catch," at all the stations in the line of coast 

 from Wick to Peterhead, employed 2,334 boats, each having at least 

 four men and a boy on board. There were 273,066 crans of fish 

 caught, calculated to be upwards of 275,000,000 of herrings. The 

 whole, when cured and put into barrels, were expected to yield a re- 

 turn of £200,000. Formerly the West Indies formed the great mar- 

 ket ; but now the chief if not the entire export is to Stettin, and one 

 or two other continental ports. t 



Although not regularly fished for except during six weeks after the 

 middle of July, yet the herring often appear in the Moray Firth in 

 May, when they are lank and thin. They gradually move westward, 

 and in some seasons congregate in innumerable multitudes on the far- 

 famed fishing-bank of u Guillam," opposite the Bay of Cromarty. On 

 this bank, about half a square mile, fishings for a whole week have 

 been made at the average catch daily of nearly a thousand barrels.]: 



* See * Letters on the Herring Fishery of the Moray Firth,' hy Hugh Miller, 

 t Banffshire Journal. % Thompson's ' British Fisheries.' 



