Description of the Herring—The Old Theory of Migration—Geographical Distribution of the Herring—Mr. John Cleghorn’s Ideas on the Natural History of the Herring—Mr. Mitchell on the National Importance of that Fish—Commission of Inquiry into the Herring-Fishery—Growth of the Herring—The Sprat—Should there be a Close-time?—Caprice of the Herring—The Fisheries—The Lochfyne Fishery—The Pilchard—Herring Commerce—Mr. Methuen—The Brand—The Herring Harvest—All Night at the Fishing—The Cure—The Curers—Herring Boats—Increase of Netting—Are we Overfishing?—Proposal for more Statistics.

The common herring is one of our most beautiful and abundant fishes, and is so well known as scarcely to require description; but it has one or two peculiarities of structure that may be briefly alluded to. Its belly, for instance, is keeled (as the Scotch fisher folk call carinated), and is well protected by strong scales, giving us reason to suppose that it is therefore a ground-feeder; and having a very large pectoral fin, and an air-bag of more than usual dimensions, it is thus endowed with a very rapid moving power. I gather from personal observation of many herring stomachs—and the stomach of the herring is unusually large—that this fish is a devouring feeder, that it preys upon its own young or upon the roe of its congeners when other food is scarce. Its lobes of roe or milt are larger in proportion to its body than those of any other fish. The herring has a fine instinct for selecting a nursery for its young, contriving, when not obstructed, to deposit its ova on such bottoms as will ensure the adherence of its eggs and the favourable nourishment of the young fish.

The herring is taken throughout the year in vast quantities, thus affording a plentiful supply of cheap and wholesome food to the poorer classes, whilst its capture and cure afford remunerative employment to a large body of industrious people. It is greatly to be regretted, therefore, that recent fluctuations in the quantity caught have given occasion for well-grounded fears of an ultimate exhaustion of some of our largest shoals, or at all events of so great a diminution of their producing power as probably to render one or two of the best fisheries unproductive. This is nothing new, however, in the history of the herring-fishery: various places can be pointed out, which, although now barren of herrings, were formerly frequented by large shoals, that, from overfishing or other causes, have been dispersed.

This supposed overfishing of the herring has resulted chiefly from our ignorance of the natural history of that fish—ignorance which has long prevailed, and which we are only now beginning to overcome. Indeed, much as the subject has been discussed during the last ten years, and great as the light is that has been thrown on the natural and economic history of our fish, considering the elemental difficulty which stands in the way of perfect observation, there are yet persons who insist upon believing all the old theories and romances pertaining to the lives of sea animals. We occasionally hear of the great sea-serpent; the impression of St. Peter’s thumb is still to be seen on the haddock; “Moby Dick,” a Tom Sayers among fighting whales, still ranges through the squid fields of the Pacific Ocean; and I know an old fisherman who once borrowed a comb from a polite mermaid!

Not very long ago, for instance, the old theory of the migration of the herring to and from the Arctic Regions was gravely revived in an unexpected quarter, as if that romance of fish-life was still believed by modern naturalists to be the chief episode in the natural history of Clupea harengus; indeed in the present edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica this migratory theory is still sustained (see article “Ichthyology”). The original migration story—which was invented by Pennant, or rather was constructed by him from the theories of fishermen—old as it is, is worthy of being briefly recapitulated, as affording a good point of view for a consideration of the natural and economic history of the herring as now ascertained: it was to the effect that in the inaccessible seas of the high northern latitudes herrings were found in overwhelming abundance, securing within the icy Arctic Circle a bounteous feeding-ground, and at the same time a quiet and safe retreat from their numerous enemies. At the proper season, inspired by some commanding impulse, vast bodies of this fish gathered themselves together into one great army, and in numbers far exceeding the power of imagination to picture departed for the waters of Europe and America. The particular division of this great heer, which was destined annually to repopulate the British seas, and afford a plenteous food-store for the people, was said to arrive at Iceland about March, and to be of such amazing extent as to occupy a surface more than equal to the dimensions of Great Britain and Ireland, but subdivided, by a happy instinct, into battalions five or six miles in length and three or four in breadth, each line or column being led, according to the ideas of fishermen, by herrings (probably the Allis and Twaite shad) of more than ordinary size and sagacity. These heaven-directed strangers were next supposed to strike on the Shetland Islands, where they divided of themselves, as we are told; one division taking along the west side of Britain, whilst the other took the east side, the result being an adequate and well-divided supply of this fine fish in all our larger seas and rivers, as the herrings penetrated into every bay, and filled all our inland lochs from Wick to Yarmouth. Mr. Pennant was not contented with the development of this myth, but evidently felt constrained to give éclat to his invention by inditing a few moral remarks just by way of a tag. “Were we,” he says, “inclined to consider this migration of the herring in a moral light, we might reflect with veneration and awe on the mighty power which originally impressed on this useful body of His creatures the instinct that directs and points out the course that blesses and enriches these islands, which causes them at certain and invariable times to quit the vast polar depths, and offer themselves to our expectant fleets. This impression was given them that they might remove for the sake of depositing their spawn in warmer seas, that would mature and vivify it more assuredly than those of the frigid zone. It is not from defect of food that they set themselves in motion, for they come to us full and fat, and on their return are almost universally observed to be lean and miserable.”

Happily, the naturalists of the present day know a vast deal more of the natural history of the herring than Mr. Pennant ever knew, and, on the authority of the most able inquirers, it may be taken for granted that the herring is a local and not a migratory fish. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the herring is a native of our immediate seas, and can be caught all the year round on the coasts of the three kingdoms. The fishing begins at the island of Lewis, in the Hebrides, in the month of May, and goes on as the year advances, till in July it is being prosecuted off the coast of Caithness; while in autumn and winter we find large supplies of herrings at Yarmouth; and there is a winter fishery in the Firth of Forth: moreover, this fish is found in the south long before it ought to be there, if we were to believe in Pennant’s theory. It has been deduced, from a consideration of the figures of the annual takes of many years, that the herring exists in distinct races, which arrive at maturity month after month; and it is well known that the herrings taken at Wick in July are quite different from those caught at Dunbar in August or September: indeed I would go further and say that even at Wick each month has its changing shoal, and that as one race ripens for capture another disappears, having fulfilled its mission of procreation. It is certain that the herrings of these different seasons vary considerably in size and appearance; and it is very well known that the herrings of different localities are marked by distinctive features. Thus, the well-known Lochfyne herring is essentially different in its flavour from that of the Firth of Forth, and those taken in the Firth of Forth differ again in many particulars from those caught off Yarmouth.

In fact, the herring never ventures far from the shore where it is taken, and its condition, when it is caught, is just an index of the feeding it has enjoyed in its particular locality. The superiority in flavour of the herring taken in our great land-locked salt-water lochs is undoubted. Whether or not it results from the depth and body of water, from more plentiful marine vegetation, or from the greater variety of land food likely to be washed into these inland seas, has not yet been determined; but it is certain that the herrings of our western sea-lochs are infinitely superior to those captured in the more open sea. It is natural that the animals of one feeding locality should differ from those of another: land animals, it is well known, are easily affected by change of food and place; and fish, I have no doubt, are governed by the same laws. But on this part of the herring question I need scarcely waste any argument, as there is but one writer who still persists in the old “theory” of migration. He is the same gentleman who has doubts about a grilse becoming a salmon!

Moreover, it is now known, from the inquiries of the late Mr. Mitchell and other authorities on the geographical distribution of the herring, that that fish has never been noticed as being at all abundant in the Arctic Regions; and the knowledge accumulated from recent investigations has dispelled many of what may be termed the minor illusions once so prevalent about the life of the herring and other fish. People, however, have been very slow to believe that fish were subject to the same natural laws as other animals. In short, seeing that the natural history of all kinds of fish has been largely mixed up with tradition or romance, it is no wonder that many have been slow to discard Pennant’s pretty story about the migratory instinct of the herring, and the wonderful power of sustained and rapid travelling by which it reached and returned from our coasts. Even Yarrell, as will by and by be shown, wrote in a weak uncertain tone about this fish; indeed his account of it is not entitled to very much consideration, being a mere compilation, or rather a series of extracts, from other writers.

It was not till the year 1854 that anything like an authentic contradiction to Pennant’s theory was obtained. Before that time one or two bold people asserted that they had doubts about the migration story, and thought that the herring must be a local animal, from the fact of its being found on the British coasts all the year round; while one daring man said authoritatively, from personal knowledge, that there were no herrings in the Arctic seas. During the year I have mentioned, a paper, which was communicated to the Liverpool Meeting of the British Association by Mr. Cleghorn of Wick, directed an amount of public attention to the herring-fishery, which still continues, and which, at the time, was thought sure ultimately to result in an authentic inquiry into the natural and economic history of that fish. Such an investigation has now been made by persons qualified to undertake the task, and the result of their inquiries has been summed up in a most interesting report, which, along with the evidence taken by the commissioners, I shall have occasion to refer to in another part of the present chapter; the labours of Cleghorn, Mitchell, and others, claiming priority of notice, as the ideas promulgated by these gentlemen, although often hotly opposed and combated, have gone a great way to guide public opinion on the subject, and have evidently helped to influence recent investigators.

In his paper communicated to the British Association at Liverpool, Mr. Cleghorn stated that, living at Wick, the chief seat of the fishery—“the Amsterdam of Scotland” in fact—his attention had been directed to the herring-fishery by the fluctuations in the annual take. That season (i.e. 1854) there were 920 boats engaged in the fishing, and the produce was 95,680 barrels. On comparing the fishing of 1854 with that of 1825, it was found to be 14,000 barrels short; and as compared with 1830, 57,000 barrels less. It was found to be the smallest fishing since 1840, and 61,000 barrels short of the previous year. Various surmises were hazarded as to the cause of the deficiency, but the generally-received opinion was, that the falling off was attributable to the two rough nights on which the boats did not put to sea, while great shoals of herrings were on the coast. That this is an erroneous and very partial view of the matter Mr. Cleghorn infers, because at all the stations between Noss Head and Cape Wrath the fishing was a complete failure; and the same may be said of Orkney and Shetland; while for the whole of Scotland the shortcoming, perhaps, was one-third of the previous year.

Mr. Cleghorn—of whom it is proper to state that while in business in Wick he suffered much local persecution for his views of the herring question—says that he believes the fluctuations in the capture to be caused by “overfishing,” as in the case of the salmon, the haddock, and other fish. The points brought forward by Mr. Cleghorn in order to prove his case were as follow:—1. That the herring is a native of waters in which it is found, and never migrates. 2. That distinct races of it exist at different places. 3. That twenty-seven years ago the extent of netting employed in the capture of the fish was much less than what is now used, while the quantity of herrings caught was, generally speaking, much greater. 4. There were fishing stations extant some years ago which are now exhausted; a steady increase having taken place in their produce up to a certain point, then violent fluctuations, and then final extinction. 5. The races of herrings nearest our large cities have disappeared first; and in districts where the tides are rapid, as among islands and in lochs, where the fishing grounds are circumscribed, the fishings are precarious and brief; while on the other hand, extensive seabords having slack tides, with little accommodation for boats, are surer and of longer continuance as fishing stations. 6. From these premises it follows that the extinction of districts, and the fluctuations in the fisheries generally, are attributable to overfishing. In the commercial portion of this chapter I shall again have occasion to refer to Mr. Cleghorn’s investigations on the subject of the netting employed, but it occurred to me to state Mr. Cleghorn’s theory at this place, as it has been the key-note to much of the recent discussion on the subject of the natural history of the herring.

Before the reading of Mr. Cleghorn’s statistics, the natural history of the herring was not well understood even by naturalists; so difficult is it to make observations in the laboratories of the sea. Only a few persons, till recently, were intimate with the history of this fish, and knew that, instead of being a migratory animal, as had been asserted by Anderson and Pennant, the herring was as local to particular coasts as the salmon to particular rivers.

The late Mr. J. M. Mitchell, the Belgian Consul at Leith (who published a work on the National Importance of the Herring), in a paper which he read before the British Association at Oxford, three years ago, settled with much care and very effectually the geographical part of the herring question. His idea also is that the herring is a native of the coast on which it is found, and that immediately after spawning the full-sized herrings make at once for the deep waters of their own neighbourhood, where they feed till the spawning season again induces them to seek the shallow water. Mr. Mitchell gives his reasons, and states that the herrings resorting to the various localities have marked differences in size, shape, or quality; those of each particular coast having a distinct and specific character which cannot be mistaken; and so well determined are those particulars that practical men, on seeing the herrings, can at once pronounce the locality from whence they come; as, indeed, is the case with salmon, turbot, and many other fishes and crustaceans.

On the southern coast of Greenland the herring is a rare fish; and, according to Crantz, only a small variety is found on the northern shore, nor has it been observed in any number in the proper icy seas—as it would undoubtedly have been had it resorted thither in such innumerable quantities as was imagined by the naturalists of the last century. Another proof that the herring is local to the coasts of Britain lies in the fact of the different varieties brought to our own markets. As expert fishers know the salmon of particular rivers, so do some men know the different localities of our herring from merely glancing at the fish. A Lochfyne fish differs in appearance from a herring taken off the coast of Caithness, while the latter again differs from those taken by the Dunbar boats off the Isle of May. Experienced fishmongers know the different localities of the same kinds of fish as easily as a farmer will separate a Cheviot sheep from a Southdown. Thus they can at once distinguish a Severn salmon from one caught in the Tweed or the Spey, and they can tell at a glance a Lochfyne matie from a Firth of Forth one.

Turning now to the report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into the operation of the Acts relating to trawling for herring on the west coast of Scotland, we obtain some interesting information as to the spawning and growth of the herring. Upon these branches of the subject the public have hitherto been very ill informed. As has been already stated, Yarrell’s account of this particular fish is a mere compilation from Dr. M’Culloch, W. H. Maxwell, Dr. Parnell, and others, and is thus very disappointing. Again, the account in the Naturalist’s Library is compressed into five small pages, referring chiefly to authorities on the subject, with quotations from Yarrell! It is only by searching in Blue Books, by perusing much newspaper writing of a controversial kind, and by arduous personal inquiry, that I have been able to complete anything like an accurate precis of the natural and economic history of this very plentiful fish.

As to the periods at which herrings spawn, the commissioners appointed to conduct the latest inquiry that has been made inform us that they met with “singularly contradictory” statements, and after having collected a large amount of valuable evidence, they arrived at the conclusion that herrings spawn at two seasons of the year—viz. in the spring and autumn. They have no evidence of a spawning during the solstitial months—viz. June and December; but in nearly all the other months gravid herrings are found, and the commissioners assert that a spring spawning certainly occurs in the latter part of January, as also in the three following months, and the autumn spawning in the latter end of July, and likewise in the following months up to November: “Taking all parts of the British coast together, February and March are the great months for the spring spawning, and August and September for the autumn spawning.” The spawn, it may be stated in passing, is deposited on the surface of the stones, shingle, and gravel, and on old shells, at the various spawning places, and it adheres tenaciously to whatever it happens to fall upon. This, as will be seen, brings us exactly back to Mr. Cleghorn’s ideas of the herring existing in races at different places and in separate bodies, and thereby rendering the fluctuations of the great series of shoals at Wick more and more intelligible, especially when we take into account the fact that winter shoals have recently been found at that place, giving rise to what may ultimately prove a considerable addition to the great autumn fishery yet carried on there. Indeed I consider this point proved, and having taken great pains in sifting the evidence (of different spawning seasons) given on the question, both oral and written, I feel entitled to say so much.

As to the question of how long herrings take to grow, from the period of the deposition of the egg, there are various opinions, for no naturalist or practical fisherman has been able definitely to fix the time. There is reason to believe, we are told in the report, that the eggs of herrings are hatched in, at most, from two to three weeks after deposition. This is very rapid work when we consider that the eggs of the salmon require to be left for a period of ninety or a hundred days, even in favourable seasons, before they quicken into life, and that the eggs of a considerable number of fish are known to take a much longer period than three weeks to ripen. The rate of growth of the herring, and the tie at which it begins to reproduce itself, are not yet well understood; indeed, it seems particularly difficult to fix the period at which it reaches the reproductive stage.[8] I have had young herrings of all sizes in my possession, from those of an inch long upwards. The following are the measurements of a few specimens which were procured about the end of February 1861, and not one of which had any appearance of either roe or milt, while some (the smaller fish) were strongly serrated in the abdominal line, and others, as they advanced in size, lost this distinguishing mark, and were only very slightly serrated. The largest of these fish—and they must all have been caught at one time—was eight inches long, nearly four inches in circumference at the thickest part of the body, and weighed a little over two ounces. The smallest of these herring-fry did not weigh a quarter of an ounce, and was not quite three inches in length. One of them, again, that was six inches long, only weighed three-quarters of an ounce; whilst another of the same lot, four and a half inches long, weighed a quarter of an ounce exactly. I do not propose at present to enter at great length into the sprat controversy; but, if the sprat be the young of some one of the different species of herring, as I take leave to think it is, then the question of its growth and natural economy will become highly important. Some people say that the herring must have attained the age of seven years before it can yield milt or roe, whilst a period of three years has been also named as the ultimate time of this event; but there are persons who think that the herring attains its reproductive power in eighteen months, while others affirm that the fish grows to maturity in little more than half that time. If the average size of a herring may be stated as eleven and a half inches, individual fish of Clupea harengus have been found measuring seventeen inches, and full fish have been taken only ten inches in length, when should the example, noted above as being eight inches long, reach its full growth? and how old was it at the time of its capture? And, again, were the fish—all taken out of the same boat, be it observed, and caught in the same shoal—all of one particular year’s hatching? Is this the story of the parr over again, or is it the case that the fishermen had found a shoal of mixed herrings—some being of one year’s spawning, some of another? I confess to being puzzled, and may again remind the reader that my largest fish had never spawned, and had not the faintest trace of milt or roe within it. Then, again, as to the time when herrings spawn, I have over and over again asserted in various quarters that they spawn in nearly every month of the year—an assertion, as I have just shown, which has been proved by the recent inquiry.

As to the place of spawning, development of the ova, and other circumstances attendant on the increase of the herring, I promulgated the following opinions some years ago, and I see no reason to alter them:—The herring shoal keeps well together till the time of spawning, whatever the fish may do after that event. Some naturalists think that the shoal breaks up after it spawns, and that the herring then live an individual life, till again instinctively moved together for the grand purpose of procreating their kind. It is quite clear, I think, that the herring moves into the shallow water because of its increased temperature, and its being more fitted in consequence for the speedy vivifying of the spawn. The same shoal will always gather over the same spawning ground, and the fish will keep their position till they fulfil the grand object of their life. The herrings will rise buoyantly to the top water after they have spawned; before that they swim deep and hug the ground. The herring, in my opinion, must have a rocky place to spawn upon, with a vegetable growth of some kind to receive the roe; shoals may of course accidentally spawn on soft ground. It is not accurately known how long a period elapses till the spawn ripens into life. I think, however, that herring spawn requires a period of about six weeks to ripen. It is known that young herrings have appeared on a spawning ground in myriads within fifty days after the departure of a shoal, and fishermen say that no spawn can be found on the ground after the lapse of a few weeks from the visit of the gravid shoal—that the eggs in fact have come to life, and that the fish are swimming about; and some fishermen assert that the little whitebait is the herring in its first stage.

It is generally known that the sprat (Clupea sprattus) is a most abundant fish, so plentiful as to have been used at times for manure. The fact of its great abundance has induced a belief that it is not a distinct species of fish, but is, in reality, the young of the herring. It is true that many distinguishing marks are pointed out as belonging only to the sprat—such as its serrated belly, the relative position of the fins, etc. But there remains, on the other side, the very striking fact of the sprat being rarely found with either milt or roe; indeed, the only case I know of this fish having been found in a condition to perpetuate its species was detailed by the late Mr. Mitchell, Belgian Consul at Leith, who exhibited before one of the learned societies of Edinburgh a pair of sprats having the roe and milt fully developed. Dr. Dod, an ancient anatomist, says: “It is evident that sprats are young herrings. They appear immediately after the herrings are gone, and seem to be the spawn just vivified, if I may use the expression. A more undeniable proof of their being so is in their anatomy; since, on the closest search, no difference but size can be found between them.” After the nonsense which was at one time written about the parr, and considering the anomalies of salmon growth, it would be unsafe to dogmatise on the sprat question. As to the serrated belly, we might look upon it as we do the tucks of a child’s frock—viz. as a provision for growth. The fin-rays of this fish have also been cited in evidence as not being the same in number as those of the herring, but as I can testify, from actual counting, the fin-rays of the latter fish vary considerably, therefore the number of fin-rays is not evidence in the case. The slaughter of sprats which is annually carried on in our seas is, I suspect, as decided a killing of the goose for the sake of the golden eggs as the grilse-slaughter which is annually carried on in our salmon rivers.

The herring is found under four different conditions:—1st, Fry or sill; 2d, Maties or fat herring; 3d, Full herring; 4th, Shotten or spent herring. All herrings under five or six inches in length come under the first denomination. The matie is the finest condition in which a herring can be used for food purposes; and if the fishery could be so arranged, that is the time at which it should be caught for consumption. At that period it is very fat, its feeding-power being all developed on its body; the spawn is small, the growth of the roe or milt not having yet demanded the whole of the nutriment taken by the fish. A full herring is one in which the milt or roe is fully developed. The maties develop into spawning herring with great rapidity—in the course of three months, it is said. The herrings at the spawning season come together in vast numbers, and proceed to their spawning places in the shallower and consequently warmer parts of the sea. As Gilbert White says, “the two great motives which regulate the brute creation are love and hunger; the one incites them to perpetuate their kind, the latter induces them to preserve individuals.” In obedience to these laws the herring congregate on our coast, for there only they find an abundant supply of food to mature with the necessary rapidity their milt and roe, as well as a sea-bottom fitted to receive their spawn; and they are thus brought within the reach of man at what many persons consider the wrong time of their life.

As to this division of the question, it has been said that it matters not at what period you take a herring, whether it be old or young, without or with spawn; that fish cannot again be caught, and will never spawn again; and it is argued, therefore, that the taking of fish in “the family way” no more prevents it from reproducing than if it had been killed in the condition of a matie. The same argument was used in the case of the young salmon; and it was asked: If you kill all your grilse, where are you to find your salmon? but I shall have more to say on this part of my topic by and by.

The herring breeds, then, and is caught in greater or lesser quantities, during every month of the year. There is no general close-time for the herring in Scotland. On one or two parts of the west coast it has hitherto been illegal to capture this fish at certain seasons, although the restrictions are not general. How is it that the time selected by fishermen for the capture of this fish corresponds with the period when it is a crime to take a salmon? If a gravid salmon be unwholesome, is a gravid herring good for food? Do not the same physical laws affect both of these fish? There cannot be a doubt but that at the period of spawning, this fish, as well as all other fish, is in its worst condition so far as its food-yielding qualities are concerned, because at that time of its life its whole nutritive power is exerted on behalf of its seed, and its flesh is consequently lean and unpalatable. Yet it is a great fact that the time which the herring selects in order to fulfil the grandest instinct of its nature is the very time appointed by man for its capture! In fact, that is the period when herrings are at a premium; they must be “full fish,” or they cannot obtain the official brand; in other words, shotten herrings—i.e. fish that have spawned—are not of much more than half the value of the others. When it is taken into account that each pair of full fish (male and female) are killed just as they are about to give us the chance of obtaining an increase of the stock to the extent say of thirty thousand, the ultimate effect must be to disturb and cripple the producing powers of the shoal to such a degree that it will break up and find a new breeding-ground, safe for a time perhaps from the spoliation of the greedy fishermen. The Lochfyne commissioners give as a reason for their non-recommendation of a close-time the fact, that were there to be a cessation from labour, the enemies of the herring would so increase, that the jubilee given would be nugatory. But surely there is a great want of logic in this argument! How is it that a close-time operates so favourably in the case of the salmon—not only a seasonal close-time, but a weekly one as well? Would not the herring, with its almost miraculous breeding-power, increase in the same ratio, or even in a greater ratio than its enemies, especially if, as the commissioners tell us and we believe, it is engaged in multiplying its kind during ten months of the year? Are not the enemies of the herring at work during the fishing season as well as at other periods? I could understand the logic of denying a close-time on the ground that, as the herring never ceases breeding, it is impossible to fix a correct period. But, according to the deliverance made by the commissioners in the natural history portion of their inquiry, a close-time is quite possible. I have ever been of opinion, notwithstanding the practical difficulties that would have to be encountered in carrying it out, that the want of a close-time, especially for the larger kinds of sea-fish, is one of the causes which are so obviously affecting the supplies. It is certain also, from chemical and sanitary investigation, that all fish are unwholesome at the period of spawning; the salmon at that time of its life is looked upon as being little better than carrion. But, without dwelling on this phase of the question, or considering the effect of unwholesome fish on the public health, I must point out most strongly that the want of a well-defined close-time is one of the greatest and severest of our fish-destroying agencies. We give our grouse a breathing space; nay, we sometimes afford to that bird a whole jubilee year; we do not shoot our hares during certain months of the year, nor do we select their breeding season as the proper time to kill our oxen or our sheep; but we do not at dinner-time object to an entrée composed of cod-roe, and we evidently rather believe in the propriety of killing only our seed-laden herrings! This lavish destruction of fish-life has arisen in great part from the well-known fecundity of all kinds of sea-fish, some of which yield their eggs by the million, and this has given rise to the idea that it is impossible to exhaust the shoals. But when it is considered that this wonderful fecundity is met by an unparalleled destruction of the seed and also of the young fish, we need not be astonished at the ever-recurring complaint of scarcity. A recent, but no doubt exaggerated complaint, sets forth that the beam-trawl is one of the most destructive engines employed in the sea, five hundred tons of spawn being said to be destroyed by the trawlers in twenty-four hours. It is well known also that tons of broken fish and spawn are sold in the south as manure for the land at threepence per bushel! There can be no doubt that there is annually an enormous waste of fish-life, through the accidental destruction of very large quantities of spawn, herring-spawn as well as all other kinds.

As to the food of the herring, the report already alluded to tells us that it “consists of crustacea, varying in size from microscopic dimensions to those of a shrimp, and of small fish, particularly sandeels. While in the matie condition, they feed voraciously, and not unfrequently their stomachs are found immensely distended with crustacea and sandeels, in a more or less digested condition.” I have personally examined the stomachs of many herrings, and have found in them the remains of all kinds of food procurable in the place frequented by the particular animal examined—including herring-roe, young herrings, sprats, etc.; but the sandeel seems to be its favourite food.

One of the wonders connected with the natural history of the herring is the capricious nature of the fish. It is always changing its habitat, and, according to vulgar belief, from the most curious circumstances. I need not add to the necessary length of this chapter by giving a great number of instances of the capricious nature of the herring; but I must cite a few, in order to make my recapitulation of herring history as complete as possible, and at the same time it is proper to mention that superstition is brought to bear on this point. The fishermen of St. Monance, in Fife, used to remove their church-bell during the fishing season, as they affirmed that its ringing scared away the shoals of herring from the bay! It has long been a favourite and popular idea that they were driven away by the noise of gun-firing. The Swedes say that the frequent firings of the British ships in the neighbourhood of Gothenburg frightened the fish away from the place. In a similar manner and with equal truth it was said that they had been driven away from the Baltic by the firing of guns at the battle of Copenhagen! “Ordinary philosophy is never satisfied,” says Dr. M’Culloch, “unless it can find a solution for everything; and it is satisfied for this reason with imaginary ones.” Thus in Long Island, one of the Hebrides, it was asserted that the fish had been driven away by the kelp-manufacture, some imaginary coincidence having been found between their disappearance and the establishment of that business. But the kelp fires did not drive them away from other shores, which they frequent and abandon indifferently, without regard to that work. A member of the House of Commons, in a debate on a Tithe Bill in 1835, stated that a clergyman, having obtained a living on the coast of Ireland, signified his intention of taking the tithe of fish, which was, however, considered to be so utterly repugnant to their privileges and feelings, that not a single herring had ever since visited that part of the shore!

The most prominent members of the Clupediæ are the common herring (Clupea harengus); the sprat, or garvie (Clupea sprattus); and the pilchard, or gipsy herring (Clupea pilchardus). The other members of this family are the whitebait, the anchovy, and the Alice and Twaite shad; but these, although affording material for speculation to naturalists (see chapter on “Fish Growth”), are not of any commercial importance.

The fisheries for the common herring, the pilchard, and the sprat, are carried on, with a brief interval, all the year round; but the great herring season is during the autumn—from August to October—when the sea is covered with boats in pursuit of that fine fish, and in some of its phases the herring-fishery assumes an aspect that is decidedly picturesque. Every little bay all round the island has its tiny fleet; the mountain closed lochs of the Western Highlands have each a fishery; while at some of the more important fishing-stations there are very large fleets assembled—as at Wick, Dunbar, Ardrishaig, Stornoway, Peterhead, and Anstruther. The chief curers have places of business in these towns, where they keep a large store of curing materials and a competent staff of coopers and others to aid them in their business. Such boats as do not carry on a local fishery proceed from the smaller fishing-villages to one or other of the centres of the herring trade. In fact, wherever an enterprising curer sets up his stand, there the boats will gather round him; and beside him will collect a mob of all kinds of miscellaneous people—dealers in salt, sellers of barrel-staves, vendors of “cutch,” Prussian herring-buyers, comely girls from the inland districts to gut, and men from the Highlands anxious to officiate as “hired hands.” Itinerant ministers and revivalists also come on the scene and preach occasional sermons to the hundreds of devout Scotch people who are assembled; and thus arises many a prosperous little town, or at least towns that might be prosperous were the finny treasures of the sea always plentiful. As the chief herring season comes on a kind of madness seizes on all engaged, ever so remotely, in the trade; as for those more immediately concerned, they seem to go completely “daft,” especially the younger hands. The old men, too, come outside to view the annual preparations, and talk, with revived enthusiasm, to their sons and grandsons about what they did twenty years agone; the young men spread out the shoulder-of-mutton sails of their boats to view and repair defects; and the wives and sweethearts, by patching and darning, contrive to make old nets “look amaist as weel as new;” boilers bubble with the brown catechu, locally called “cutch,” which is used as a preservative for the nets and sails; while all along the coasts old boats are being cobbled up and new ones are being built and launched.

The scene along the seabord from Buckhaven on the Firth of Forth to Buckie on the Firth of Moray is one of active preparation, and all concerned are hoping for a “lucky” fishing; “winsome” young lassies are praying for the success of their sweethearts’ boats, because if the season turns out well they will be married women at its close. Curers look sanguine, and the owners of free boats seem happy. The little children too—those wonderful little children one always finds in a fishing village, striving so manfully to fill up “daddy’s” old clothes—participate in the excitement: they have their winter’s “shoon” and “Sunday breeks” in perspective. At the quaint village of Gamrie, at Macduff, or Buckie, the talk of old and young, on coach or rail, from morning to night, is of herrings. There are comparisons and calculations about “crans” and barrels, and “broke” and “splitbellies,” and “full fish” and “lanks,” and reminiscences of great hauls of former years, and much figurative talk about prices and freights, and the cost of telegraphic messages. Then, if the present fishery be dull, hopes are expressed that the next one may be better. “Ony fish this mornin’?” is the first salutation of one neighbour to another: the very infants talk about “herrin’;” schoolboys steal them from the boats for the purpose of aiding their negotiations with the gooseberry woman: while wandering paupers are rewarded with one or two broken fish by good-natured sailors, when “the take” has been so satisfactory as to warrant such largess. At Wick the native population, augmented by four thousand strangers, wakens into renewed life; it is like Doncaster on the approach of the St. Leger. The summer-time of Wick’s existence begins with the fishery: the shops are painted on their outsides and are replenished within; the milliner and the tailor exhibit their newest fashions; the hardware merchant flourishes his most attractive frying-pans; the grocer amplifies his stock; and so for a brief period all is couleur de rose.

They are not all practical fishermen who go down to the sea for herring during the great autumnal fishing season. By far the larger portion of those engaged in the capture of this fish—particularly at the chief stations—are what are called “hired hands,” a mixture of the farmer, the mechanic, and the sailor; and this fact may account in some degree for a portion of the accidents which are sure to occur in stormy seasons. Many of these men are mere labourers at the herring-fishery, and have little skill in handling a boat; they are many of them farmers in the Lewis, or small crofters in the Isle of Skye. The real orthodox fisherman is a different being, and he is the same everywhere. If you travel from Banff to Bayonne you find that fishermen are unchangeable.

The men’s work is all performed at sea, and, so far as the capture of the herring is concerned, there is no display of either skill or cunning. The legal mode of capturing the herring is to take it by means of what is called a drift-net. The herring-fishery, it must be borne in mind, is regulated by Act of Parliament, by which the exact means and mode of capture are explicitly laid down. A drift-net is an instrument made of fine twine worked into a series of squares, each of which is an inch, so as to allow plenty of room for the escape of young herrings. Nets for herring are measured by the barrel-bulk, and each barrel will hold two nets, each net being fifty yards long and thirty-two feet deep. The larger fishing-boats carry something like a mile of these nets; some, at any rate, carry a drift which will extend two thousand yards in length. These drifts are composed of many separate nets, fastened together by means of what is called a back-rope, and each separate net of the series is marked off by a buoy or bladder which is attached to it, the whole being sunk in the sea by means of a leaden or other weight, and fastened to the boat by a longer or shorter trail-rope, according to the depth in the water at which it is expected to find the herrings. This formidable apparatus, which forms a great perforated wall, being let into the sea immediately after sunset, floats or drifts with the tide, so as to afford the herring an opportunity of striking against it, and so becoming captured—in fact they are drowned in the nets. The boats engaged in the drift-net fishing are of various sizes, and are strongly and carefully built: the largest, being upwards of thirty-five feet keel, with a large drift of nets and good sail and mast, will cost something like a sum of £200.

The other mode of fishing for herrings, which has existed for about a quarter of a century, is illegal, although it is as nearly as possible the same as is legally used to capture the pilchard on the coast of Cornwall. In the west of Scotland, on Lochfyne in particular, where it is still to some extent practised, it is called “trawling;” but the instrument of capture is in reality a “seine” net; and, so far as the size of the mesh is concerned, is all right. The mode of using this net I shall presently describe; in the meantime I may state that the practice of “seining” has given cause to much disputation and many quarrels, some of them resulting in violence and bloodshed; the whole dispute having given rise to the recent Commission of Inquiry. It is worth while, I think, to abridge the commissioners’ account of the cause of quarrel, and the arguments used on both sides of the question. The drift-net men assert that immature herrings are caught by the trawl, and that that mode of fishing breaks up the shoals, and that these scatter and do not again unite, as also that the seine destroys the spawn. A graver assertion is, that the trawled herrings are not fit for curing in consequence of their being injured in the capture; likewise that the seine-net fishers are given to brawling and mischief. The assertion is also made that it is quite impossible for the two kinds of fishing to be carried on together, especially in confined places like Lochfyne. The real reason is, I think, brought in last—viz. that the great quantities of fish taken on a sudden by the trawlers affect the markets and derange the prices—all to the great detriment of the drift-net men. The trawlers are quite able to answer all these questions both individually and by a general denial. They say that it is not their interest to contract the width of the mesh, and that, in fact, the trawl-net mesh is quite as large as the other. They assert that a seine-net is not so much calculated to disturb a shoal of herrings as the drift-net, which is of great length and at once obstructs the shoal. They deny that they have interfered with the spawning-beds, and also state that they have no particular interest in catching foul fish, as they sell their herrings chiefly in a fresh state, and say that their fish are most adapted for the fresh market, likewise that they can be cured as easily as herrings caught by the drift-nets. They emphatically deny being brawlers, or that they wilfully injure the drift-nets; and they assert that both kinds of fishing can perfectly well be carried on simultaneously on the same fishing-ground. In fact the trawlers, in my opinion, have thoroughly made out their case; and the commissioners, I am very glad to record, have decided in their favour.

The pilchard is generally captured by means of the seine-net, and we never hear of its being injured thereby. It is also cured in large quantities, the same as the herring, although the modus operandi is somewhat different.

The pilchard was at one time, like the herring, thought to be a migratory fish, but it has been found, as in the case of the common herring, to be a native of our own seas. In some years the pilchard has been known to shed its spawn in May, but the usual time is October, and Mr. Couch thinks that fish do not breed twice in the same year. Their food, we are told by Mr. Couch, is small crustaceous animals, as their stomachs are frequently crammed with a small kind of shrimp, and the supply of this kind of food is thought to be enormous. When on the coast, the assemblage of pilchards assumes an arrangement like that of a great army, and the vast shoal is known to be made up by the coming together of smaller bodies of that fish, and these frequently separate and rejoin, and are constantly shifting their position. The pilchard is not now so numerous as it was a few years ago, but very large hauls are still occasionally obtained. According to a recent statement in the Times, the present pilchard season (1865) seems to have been a very bad one—“the worst that has been experienced for upwards of twenty years. The great majority of the boats have not nearly cleared their expenses.”

Great excitement prevails on the coast of Cornwall during the pilchard season. Persons watch the water from the coast and signal to those who are in search of the fish the moment they perceive indications of a shoal. These watchers are locally called “huers,” and they are provided with signals of white calico or branches of trees, with which to direct the course of the boat, and to inform those in charge when they are upon the fish—the shoal being best seen from the cliffs. The pilchards are captured by the seine-net—that is, the shoal, or spot of a shoal, that has risen, is completely surrounded by a wall of netting, the principal boat and its satellites the volyer and the lurker, with the “stop-nets,” having so worked as quite to overlap each other’s wall of canvas. The place where the joining of the two nets is formed is carefully watched, to see that none of the fish escape at that place, and if it be too open, the fish are beaten back with the oars of some of the persons attending—about eighteen in all. In due time the seine is worked or hauled into shallow water for the convenience of getting out the fish, and it may perhaps contain pilchards sufficient to fill two thousand hogsheads. Generally speaking, four or five seines will be at work together, giving employment to a great number of the people, who may have been watching for the chance during many days. When the tide falls the men commence to bring ashore the fish, a tuck-net worked inside of the seine being used for safety; and the large shallow dipper boats required for bringing the fish to the beach may be seen sunk to the water’s edge with their burden, as successive bucketfuls are taken out of the nets and emptied into these conveyance vessels. To give the reader an idea of quantity, as connected with pilchard-fishing, I may state that it takes nearly three thousand fish to fill a hogshead. I have heard of a shoal being captured that took a fortnight to bring ashore. Ten thousand hogsheads of pilchards have been known to be taken in one port in a day’s time. The convenience of keeping the shoal in the water is obvious, as the fish need not be withdrawn from it till it is convenient to salt them. The fish are salted in curing-houses, great quantities of them being piled up into huge stacks, alternate layers of salt and fish. During the process of curing a large quantity of useful oil exudes from the heaps. The salting process is called “bulking,” and the fish are built up into stacks with great regularity, where they are allowed to remain for four weeks, after which they are washed and freed from the oil, then packed into hogsheads, and sent to Spain and Italy, to be extensively consumed during Lent, as well as at other fasting times. The hurry and bustle at any of the little Cornwall ports during the manipulation of a few shoals of pilchards must be seen, the excitement cannot be very well described.

The pilchard is, or rather it ought to be, the Sardinia of commerce, but its place is usurped by the sprat, or garvie as we call it in Scotland, and thousands of tin boxes of that fish are annually made up and sold as sardines. I have already alluded to the sprat, so far as its natural history is concerned. It is a fish that is very abundant in Scotland, especially in the Firth of Forth, where for many years there has been a good sprat-fishery. We do not now require to go to France for our sardines, as we can cure them at home in the French style. The sprat-fishery for sardine-making is still, however, a considerable maritime industry on the coast of France. In 1864 about 75,000 barrels of sprats were taken on the coast of Brittany, besides those sold fresh and the quantities done up in oil as sardines. The process of curing with oil is as follows:—The fish must be well washed in sea-water, after which they are sprinkled with clean salt. The next process is to cut off the heads of the fish, and take away the intestines, etc., after which they are again rinsed in the sea-water, and hung up or laid out to dry in order to beautify. After this they are placed for a very brief period in a pan of boiling oil, which completes the cure. Before being packed in the neat little tin boxes in which we find them, the sardines are laid down on a grating, in order to let the oil drain off—the finishing process being the exposure of the box in a steam-chest for such a period as the curer deems necessary. According to my informant, a thorough cure is effected when the box appears convex on the two sides, only it is necessary that this convexity should disappear as the box becomes cool. Ten millions of boxes are annually sent away from the coast of Brittany, and these are widely distributed, not only in Europe, but in Australia and America as well. I have elsewhere mentioned the use of cod-roe in the French sprat-fishery. The quantity used costs about £80,000 annually, and is brought from Norway. Each boat engaged in the sprat-fishery will use from twelve to twenty barrels! Will not the consumption of such a quantity of roe tell by and by on the cod-fishery?

Sprats, whether they be young herrings or no, are very plentiful in the winter months, and afford a supply of wholesome food of the fish kind to many who are unable to procure more expensive kinds. When the fishing for garvies (sprats) was stopped a few years ago by order of the Board of White Fisheries, there was quite a sensation in Edinburgh; and an agitation was got up that has resulted in a partial resumption of the fishing, which is of considerable value—about £50,000 in the Firth of Forth alone.

Commerce in herring is entirely different from commerce in any other article, particularly in Scotland. In fact the fishery, as at present conducted, is just another way of gambling. The home “curers” and foreign buyers are the persons who at present keep the herring-fishery from stagnating, and the goods (i.e. the fish) are generally all bought and sold long before they are captured. The way of dealing in herring is pretty much as follows:—Owners of boats are engaged to fish by curers, the bargains being usually that the curer will take two hundred crans of herring—and a cran, it may be stated, is forty-five gallons of ungutted fish; for these two hundred crans a certain sum per cran is paid according to arrangement, the bargain including as well a definite sum of ready money by way of bounty, perhaps also an allowance of spirits, and the use of ground for the drying of the nets. On the other hand, the boat-owner provides a boat, nets, buoys, and all the apparatus of the fishery, and engages a crew to fish; his crew may, perhaps, be relatives and part-owners sharing the venture with him, but usually the crew consists of hired men who get so much wages at the end of the season, and have no risk or profit. This is the plan followed by free and independent fishermen who are really owners of their own boats and apparatus. It will thus be seen that the curer is bargaining for two hundred crans of fish months before he knows that a single herring will be captured; for the bargain of next season is always made at the close of the present one, and he has to pay out at once a large sum by way of bounty, and provide barrels, salt, and other necessaries for the cure before he knows even if the catch of the season just expiring will all be sold, or how the markets will pulsate next year. On the other hand, the fisherman has received his pay for his season’s fish, and very likely pocketed a sum of from ten to thirty pounds as earnest-money for next year’s work. Then, again, a certain number of curers who are men of capital will advance money to young fishermen in order that they may purchase a boat and the necessary quantity of netting to enable them to engage in the fishery—thus thirling the boat to their service, very probably fixing an advantageous price per cran for the herrings to be fished and supplied. Curers, again, who are not capitalists, have to borrow from the buyers, because to compete with their fellows they must be able to lend money for the purchase of boats and nets, or to advance sums by way of bounty to the free boats; and thus a rotten unwholesome system goes the round—fishermen, boat-builders, curers, and merchants all hanging on each other, and evidencing that there is as much gambling in herring-fishing as in horse-racing. The whole system of commerce connected with this trade is decidedly unhealthy, and ought at once to be checked and reconstructed if there be any logical method of doing it. At a port of three hundred boats a sum of £145 was paid by the curers for “arles,” and spent in the public-houses! More than £4000 was paid in bounties, and an advance of nearly £7000 made on the various contracts, and all this money was paid eight months before the fishing began. When the season is a favourable one and plenty of fish are taken, then all goes well, and the evil day is postponed; but if, as in one or two recent seasons, the take is poor, then there comes a crash. One falls, and, like a row of bricks, the others all follow. At the large fishing stations there are comparatively few of the boats that are thoroughly free: they are tied up in some way between the buyers and curers, or they are in pawn to some merchant who “backs” the nominal owner. The principal, or at least the immediate sufferers by these arrangements are the hired men.

This “bounty,” as it is called, is a most reprehensible feature of herring commerce, and although still the prevalent mode of doing business, has been loudly declaimed against by all who have the real good of the fishermen at heart. Often enough men who have obtained boats and nets on credit, and hired persons to assist them during the fishery, are so unfortunate as not to catch enough of herrings to pay their expenses. The curers for whom they engaged to fish having retained most of the bounty money on account of boats and nets, consequently the hired servants have frequently in such cases to go home—sometimes to a great distance—penniless. It would be much better if the old system of a share were re-introduced: in that case the hired men would at least participate to the extent of the fishing, whether it were good or bad. Boat-owners try of course to get as good terms as possible, as well in the shape of price for herrings as in bounty and perquisites. For an example of an engagement I may cite the case of a Burghhead boat, which bargained for 15s. per cran, 20s. of engaging money (arles), ten gallons of whisky, net-ground, net-driving—i.e. from the boat to the ground and back again—and £20 of cash in the shape of a bounty.[9] At some places even larger sums are asked for and obtained—as much as £54 in bounty and perquisites. My idea is that there ought to be no “engagements,” no bounty, and no perquisites. As each fishing comes round let the boats catch, and the curers buy day by day as the fish arrive at the quay. This plan has already been adopted at some fishing-towns, and is an obvious improvement on the prevailing plan of gambling by means of “engagements” in advance.

In fact, this fishery is best described when it is called a lottery. No person knows what the yield will be till the last moment: it may be abundant, or it may be a total failure. Agriculturists are aware long before the reaping season whether their crops are light or heavy, and they arrange accordingly; but if we are to believe the fisherman, his harvest is entirely a matter of “luck.” It is this belief in “luck” which is, in a great degree, the cause of our fisher-folk not keeping pace with the times: they are greatly behind in all matters of progress; our fishing towns look as if they were, so to speak, stereotyped. It is a woeful time for the fisher-folk when the herrings fail them; for this great harvest of the sea, which needs no tillage of the husbandman, the fruits of which are reaped without either sowing seed or paying rent, is the chief industry that the bulk of the coast population depend upon for a good sum of money. The fishing is the bank, in which they have opened, and perhaps exhausted, a cash-credit; for often enough the balance is on the wrong side of the ledger, even after the fishing season has come and gone. In other words, new boats have to be paid for out of the fishing; new clothes, new houses, additional nets, and even weddings, are all dependent on the herring-fishery. It is notable that after a favourable season the weddings among the fishing populations are very numerous. The anxiety for a good season may be noted all along the British coasts, from Newhaven to Yarmouth, or from Crail to Wick.

The highest prices are paid for the early fish, contracts for these in a cured state being sometimes fixed as high as forty-five shillings per barrel. These are at once despatched to Germany, in the inland towns of which a prime salt herring of the early cure is considered a great luxury, fetching sometimes the handsome price of one shilling! Great quantities of cured herrings are sent to Stettin or other German ports, and so eager are some of the merchants for an early supply that in the beginning of the season they purchase quantities unbranded, through the agency of the telegraph. On those parts of the coast where the communication with large towns is easy, considerable quantities of herring are purchased fresh, for transmission to Birmingham, Manchester, and other inland cities. Buyers attend for that purpose, and send them off frequently in an open truck, with only a slight covering to protect them from the sun. It is needless to say that a fresh herring is looked upon as a luxury in such places, and a demand exists that would exhaust any supply that could be sent. During one day in last September what was thought to be a hopeless glut of herrings arrived at Billingsgate; the consignment was so vast as quite to alarm the salesmen of that market; but their fears were groundless, as before noon every herring was sold. From ten to twelve thousand tons of fresh herrings are sent from Dunbar alone, during the season, into inland districts, being distributed by means of the railway, and also by cadgers.

Many of the Scottish herring-curers are men of enterprise and intelligence. The late Mr. Methuen of Leith may be cited as an example of the class: he was of humble parentage, but had the good fortune, by perseverance and industry, to become the greatest herring-curer in the world. He raised his gigantic business on a small foundation, which his father and he laid at Burntisland in Fife. His business grew apace; his yards overflowed into the streets, and his piles of barrels soon blocked up the passages. He gathered knowledge of his business from all who could give it him; and in after years, when his trade had grown to be the greatest of its kind, he found this knowledge of great service to him. He was soon compelled, however, by the extension of his connection, to seek larger head-quarters than he could obtain at Burntisland. In 1833, therefore, he removed to Leith, the seaport of Edinburgh, where he continued to carry on his business till the time of his death. For thirty years he was at the head of the herring-trade in Britain, and was so energetic and reputable in his dealings as really to command success, in which, of course, he was materially aided by his rapidly-increasing capital. He created curing-stations, and so forced business. Wherever he saw an eligible spot, he marked it out as a place to cure in. His business widened and widened, till thousands of the Scottish fishing-boats were ready to obey his behests; and, not contented with what he had achieved in his own country, he invaded England, and commenced stations along the east coast and on the Isle of Man, having some time before established business relations on the coast of Norway. Mr. Methuen took a warm interest in all questions connected with the herring-fishery, and may be said to have carried on business during the period when these fisheries were in their most prosperous condition; in fact, he may be said to have seen the culmination of the trade. He was foremost in action when an attempt was made to abolish the Fishery Board for Scotland. His accurate acquaintance with the trade, and his knowledge of the natural history of the fish, and the precise nature of his statements as to the value of the Board, were the means of converting the Government of his time, so that the Board was maintained in its integrity. Mr. Methuen’s powers of observation were considerable; he once reasoned out by a reference to some old letters the precise spot where a local shoal of herrings was to be found. I have alluded to his plan of gathering knowledge from all with whom he come in contact; he stored up such letters of his agents as contained facts for future use, and often found them of service. At one of his stations in the far North the fishing had been unsuccessful for the greater part of the season, and there was no prospect of improvement, when he gave it his consideration. Looking over his agent’s letters at said place for some years back, he found, by a comparison of dates, that at a certain spot herrings were to be found. He accordingly instructed his agent to send his boats to that spot. The fishermen simply laughed at the idea of an individual sitting some hundreds of miles away and telling them where to get fish. But as his orders were positive, they had to obey, and the consequence was that they returned the next morning loaded with herrings.