Page:Natural History, Fishes.djvu/259

Rh at the season when it approaches the shallows to spawn, have given it its common name, Herring being derived from the German heer, an army. The end of October is the ordinary period of the commencement of the spawning season, but it seems subject to local variation. For two or three months before this, the fish is in the highest condition, and is the object of eager pursuit all around the coast. The principal places where the Herring fishery is carried on may be thus enumerated:—Yarmouth, Lowestoffe, Hastings, Folkestone, Cardigan Bay, and Swansea, in England and Wales; the coasts of Caithness, Sutherland, Aberdeen, Banff, Moray, and Ross, in Scotland; and Galway, the coast of Donegal, Mayo, the mouth of the Shannon, Bantry Bay, and the coast of Wicklow, in Ireland.

The number of barrels of Herrings cured in the British fisheries may be considered to average four hundred thousand per annum; this is, of course, exclusive of the vast quantities that are eaten in a fresh state. The fisheries of Northern Europe are also very extensive; in those of Sweden and Norway, it is said that near four hundred millions fish are taken yearly, and twenty millions have been the produce of a single port.

Yarmouth, whose smoked Herrings are well-known by the term "bloaters," derives no small portion of its prosperity from this fishery. A hundred sail of vessels, averaging forty tons each, hail from this place, and about seventy hail from the neighbouring town of Lowestoft. This fieet is augmented by fifty or sixty vessels that arrive from the Yorkshire coast during the season. The capital engaged at Yarmouth is estimated at