“ King of Fish” 
371 
elbows itch for joy, when they meete with the true golde, the true 
red-herring itselfe. No true flying-fish but he; or if there be, that fish 
never flyes but when his wings are wet, and the red-herring flyes best 
when his wings are dry; throughout Belgia, High Germanie, Fraunce, 
Spaine, and Italy hee flyes; and up into Greece and Africa, south and 
southwest, ostrich-like walkes his stations; and the sepulcher palmers 
or pilgrims, because he is so portable, fill their scrips with them.” 
([Harleian Miscellany , vol. vi. p. 165.) 
Nashe also gives full particulars of the mode of herring- 
fishing, and enumerates the towns on the English coast 
where this trade w r as chiefly carried on. Yarmouth then, 
as now, stands first on the list. In a pamphlet on 
Fngland's Way to win Wealth, 1614, an account is given 
of the best fishing stations. The author begins with 
Colchester, and will “ scarce afford these men of the water 
the name of fishermen, for that their chiefest trade is 
dragging of oysters.” He moreover charges the inhabi¬ 
tants of this town with catching, under the name of 
sprats, infinite thousands of young herrings, which are 
almost worthless as food, and thus destroying the summer 
harvest. Ipswich, according to him, was the best town in 
England for the building of busses, or fishing smacks, also 
for keeping them during the winter. Great Yarmouth 
was the head-quarters of the herring fishery, and boats from 
Holland, Picardy, and Normandy came “ in hundred and 
two hundred sail at a time together ” to bring fresh fish to 
be turned into red herrings (Harleian Miscellany, vol. iii. 
p. 398). 
According to the herring’s most recent biographer, 
Mr. J. M. Mitchell, an idea prevailed in early times that 
the herring came from the Arctic Circle, or at least from 
a considerable distance northward of Scotland, in large 
shoals of some leagues in extent, and divided into lesser 
shoals on coming towards the north of Scotland, one body 
proceeding to the west coast of Scotland and to Ireland, 
and the other to the east coast, each directing its course 
