1712 Fishes. 



about Plymouth, and to the east of that port, than off Mount's Bay ; 

 for they decrease in numbers as you go in a westerly direction. 

 About August their course is easterly. The opinion of the fishermen 

 about this direction is, that those fish which visit the southern shores 

 come through the straits of Dover, while those of the northern coast 

 pass through the Irish Sea and St. George's Channel. The fishermen 

 of Mount's Bay, before they go on the Irish herring-fishery, are en- 

 gaged in taking the mackerel off Mount's Bay and the Land's End, 

 and they found it necessary occasionally to go to the west of the 

 Scilly Islands : at this time they frequently see small flocks of her- 

 rings, either sporting about at the surface of the water, or going in a 

 northerly direction. These they have, within the last few years, at- 

 tempted to take by means of the drift-net, a few pieces of which they 

 take with them for that purpose ; but they have never been successful, 

 and the plan is now given up. I cannot discover that those herrings 

 seen near the Scilly Islands ever pass up the British Channel. They 

 are rarely taken in Mount's Bay ; but in St. Ives, on the north coast, 

 they are frequently caught in large quantities, so late as September, 

 October, and November, when they are in larger bodies than in June 

 and July. Thus in 1845, from the 4th to the 10th of September, 

 1*20,000 were taken at St. Ives. They are common also on the 

 north part of the Devonshire coasts, and are there taken by the 

 drift-nets. But they are very uncertain in their movements ; for dur- 

 ing some seasons they are abundant, and in others are hardly to be 

 seen. At St. Ives, they are in some measure governed by the presence 

 of the pilchard, for they are always taken in the greatest quantities 

 when there are no pilchards, or immediately before the large "schulls" 

 appear ; the reason for which is given in the account of the migrations 

 of that fish. The largest quantities, however, pass up the St. 

 George's Channel and Irish Sea about the end of May or early 

 in June. The fishermen suppose that the bulk of the herrings remain 

 about the middle of the St. George's Channel and the Irish Sea in 

 deep water, like the pilchard does further south, and that the small 

 shoals they see towards Scilly are merely the outskirts of the mass of 

 the fish. How far south they are found I have been unable satisfac- 

 torily to ascertain, but they lie to the north of the pilchard. The 

 boats of Mount's Bay and St. Ives leave Cornwall for the Irish shores 

 about the first week in June ; and their first place of rendezvous 

 is Howth, where the fishery is at its greatest point of success about 

 the last week in June or the first week in July ; after this it decreases, 

 and the boats go further north. From the succession of the fisheries 



