370 The Animal-Lore of Shahspeare’s Time . 
Like the herring, the pilchard will rush through the 
water with such force as to cause flashes of light. Carew 
tells us (< Survey of Cornwall, p. 105) that— 
the pilchards are pursued and devoured by a bigger kind of fish, called 
a plusher, being somewhat like the dog-fish, who leapeth now and. 
then above water, and therethrough bewrayeth them to the balker 
[fisherman]. So are they likewise persecuted by the tunny, and. he 
(though not very often) taken with them damage faisant .” 
“ The Herring, king of fish,” is thus de- 
Heirmg-. py Qi aus Magnus (p. 226) :— 
“ Of all fish, almost, this onely lives by water. But taken out of the 
water he presently dies, and there is no delay between his coming to the 
ayr, and dying, as can he perceived, so soon as he is drawn forth of the 
water. His eyes shine in the sea by night: and which is more, you 
shall perceive as it were lightnings and glitterings over the sea, with 
the great motion of this fish, and turning of vast sholes of them, 
causing a reflexion; and this is commonly called herring-lightnings. 5 ’ 
The sudden motion of a skoal of herrings might on a 
moonlight night cause a sparkling effect. The phos¬ 
phorescent appearance of the open sea, of course, early- 
attracted the notice of travellers, and was ascribed by 
them to a variety of causes. One of Purchas’s pilgrims 
asserts “ that it proved to be cuttle-fish which made this 
fearful show ” ( Purchas , vol. i. p. 352). 
The name herring has been derived by some authors 
from the German word heer, an army, signifying their 
numbers. The chief biographer of this fish is Nashe, 
who in his Lenten Stnffe , or Praise of the Red Herring, 
gives it the pre-eminence over all marine inhabitants for 
usefulness, which honour it deserves even now. His 
enthusiasm is somewhat amusing :— 
“ For if Cornish pilchards, otherwise called fumados, taken on the 
shore of Cornewall, from July to November, bee so saleable as they are 
in France, Spain, and Italy, which are but counterfets to the red- 
herring, as copper to golde, or ockanie to silver; much more their 
