The Herring. 
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THE HERRING. (Chpea Earengus.) 
This fish is somewhat like the mackerel in shape, as well 
as in delicacy of taste, although it differs much in 
flavour. It is about nine or ten inches long, and about 
two and a half broad, and has blood-shot eyes ; the scales 
large and roundish ; the tail forked ; the body of a fat, 
soft, delicate flesh, but more rank than that of the 
mackerel, and therefore less wholesome. Yet some 
people are so very fond of it, that they call the Herring 
the King of Fishes. They swim in shoals, and spawn once 
a year, about the autumnal equinox, at which time they 
are the best. They come into shallow water to spawn, 
like the mackerel ; and hence they periodically visit our 
coasts, retiring again to the deep waters when the spawn- 
ing season is over. 
The fecundity of the Herring is astonishing. It has 
been calculated that if the offspring of a single pair of 
Herrings could be suffered to multiply unmolested and 
undiminished for twenty years, the}' would exhibit a 
bulk ten times the size of the earth. But, happily, Pro- 
vidence has contrived the balance of nature by giving 
them innumerable enemies. All the monsters of the 
deep find them an easy prey ; and, in addition to these, 
immense flocks of sea-fowl watch their outset, and spread 
devastation on all sides. 
In the year 1773, the Herrings for two months were 
in such immense shoals on the Scotch coasts, that it 
