very much on his eloquence, which was of a florid order. Every evening after supper, having seen that all the people were in their places and that a strict silence was observed, he preached to the fish. His text was that the Hurons did not burn fish bones. “Then enlarging on this theme with extraordinary unction, he exhorted and conjured and invited and implored the fish to come and be caught and to be of good courage and to fear nothing, for it was all to serve their friends who honoured them and did not burn their bones.”(720) At Bogadjim in German New Guinea an enchanter is employed to lure the fish to their doom. He stands in a canoe on the beach with a decorated fish-basket beside him, and commands the fish to come from all quarters to Bogadjim.(721) When the Aino have killed a sword-fish, they thank the fish for allowing himself to be caught and invite him to come again.(722) Among the Nootka Indians of British Columbia it was formerly a rule that any person who had partaken of bear’s flesh must rigidly abstain from eating any kind of fish for a term of two months. The motive for the abstinence was not any consideration for the health of the eater, but “a superstitious belief, that should any of their people after tasting bear’s flesh, eat of fresh salmon, cod, etc., the fish, though at ever so great a distance off, would come to the knowledge of it, and be so much offended thereat, as not to allow themselves to be taken by any of the inhabitants.”(723) The disappearance of herring from the sea about Heligoland in 1530 was attributed by the fishermen to the misconduct of two lads who had whipped a freshly-caught herring and then flung it back into the sea.(724) A similar disappearance of the herrings from the Moray Firth, in the reign of Queen Anne, was set down by some people to a breach of the Sabbath which had been committed by the fishermen, while others opined that it was due to a quarrel in which blood had been spilt in the sea.(725) For Scotch fishermen are persuaded that if blood be drawn in a quarrel on the coast where herring are being caught, the shoal will at once take its departure and not return for that season at least. West Highland fishermen believe that every shoal of herring has its leader which it follows wherever he goes. This leader is twice as big as an ordinary herring, and the fishermen call it the king of herring. When they chance to catch it in their nets they put it back carefully into the sea; for they would esteem it petty treason to destroy the royal fish.(726) The natives of the Duke of York Island annually decorate a canoe with flowers and ferns, lade it, or are supposed to lade it, with shell-money, and set it adrift to compensate the fish for their fellows who have been caught and eaten.(727) When the Tarahumares of Mexico are preparing to poison the waters of a river for the purpose of stupefying and catching the fish, they take the precaution of first making offerings