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 spawning 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, they would exhibit a bulk ten times the size of the earth. But, happily, Providence 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 appears from tolerably accurate computations, no fewer than one thousand six hundred and fifty boat-loads were taken in Loch Torridon in one night. These would, in the whole, amount to nearly twenty thousand barrels.
This fish is prepared in different ways, in order to be kept for use through the year. The white, or pickled Herrings, are washed in fresh water, and left the space of twelve or fifteen hours in a tub full of strong brine, made of fresh water and sea-salt. When taken out, they are drained, and put in rows or layers in barrels, with salt.
Red Herrings are prepared in the same manner, with this difference, that they are left in the brine double the time above mentioned; and when taken out, placed in a large chimney constructed for the purpose, and containing about twelve thousand, where they are smoked by means of a fire underneath, made of brushwood, for the space of twenty-four hours.
