NATURAL HISTORY OP THE HERRING. 26^ 



supposilion ; but in this, as in many other cases, these 

 very facts remain unimpeached, while they furnish 

 directly opposite inferences. They do_, indeed^ only 

 appear in immense shoals on our coasts at certain sea- 

 sons^ and, to all appearance, disappear as rapidly as 

 they came ; and yet it now appears that this migration 

 is only from deep to shallow water, and that the herring, 

 comparatively, is a domestic resident in our own seas. 

 Numerous observations, too long to be here repeated^ 

 establish the fact, that the herrings inhabit the deep 

 parts of all our coasts throughout the year; since indi- 

 viduals have been caught in every month. The great 

 armies, however, of these fish, only come near the coast 

 in summer, for the purpose of depositing their spawn ; 

 and here, as Mr. Couch so justly observes, we cannot 

 but admire and praise the goodness of Divine Provi- 

 dence, by which these and many other fishes are brought 

 to the shores, within reach of man, at that particular 

 time when they are in their highest perfection, and 

 therefore best fitted to be his food. On these occasions, 

 the shoals may be compared to vast armies, led on by 

 the largest and most vigorous, and followed by the rest, 

 which are sometimes so numerous as to cover the sea 

 for miles; so that, on entering confined bays of the shore, 

 immense quantities have been stranded and crushed : 

 these are followed and assailed on all sides by birds and 

 hosts of ravenous fishes, such as the different species of 

 sharks, porpoises, &c., who gorge upon their feeble un- 

 resisting prey ; yet the numbers are so much beyond all 

 calculation, that their ranks are never thinned. Large 

 quantities are captured on our own coasts ; but these are 

 far exceeded by the fisheries of Sweden and Norway^ 

 where it is said that near 400,000,000 have been taken 

 in one year, and 20,000,000 in a single fishery. Go- 

 thenburg, in Sweden, is celebrated for the great abun- 

 dance of its herrings, of which there has been taken, in 

 one year, the almost incredible number of 700,000,000. 

 It is supposed that those taken to the northward of our 

 own coasts are finer than those of the south; and hence 



