[Illustration: PACKING HERRINGS.] The particular fishing industry which has bulked largest in literature, and which was pursued after a systematic fashion, is, or rather was, that of the Dutch, for Holland does not at present make her mark so largely on the waters as she was wont to do, being at present far surpassed in fishing enterprise by Scotland and other countries. The particular fish coveted by the Dutch people was the herring, and I have recently had the pleasure of examining a set of engravings procured in Amsterdam, that convey a graphic idea of the great importance that was attached by the Dutch themselves to their herring-fishery. This series of sixteen peculiarly Dutch plates begins at the beginning of the fishery, as is indeed proper it should, by showing us a party busy at a seaside cottage knitting the herring nets; one or two busses are seen in the distance busy at work. We are then shown, on the banks of one of the numerous Dutch canals, a lot of quaint-looking coopers engaged in preparing the barrels, while next in order comes a representation of the preparing and victualing of the buss, which is surrounded by small boats, and crowded with an active population all engaged in getting the vessel ready for sea—barrels of provisions, breadths of netting, and various necessaries, are being got on board. Then follow plates, of which the foregoing is a specimen, showing us the equipment of various other kinds of boats, which again are succeeded by a view of the busses among the shoals of herring, the big mast struck, most of the sails furled, and the men busy hauling in the nets, which are of course, as is fitting in a picture, laden with fish. Various other boats are also shown at work, as the great hoy, a one-masted vessel, that is apparently furnished with a seine-net, and the great double shore or sea-boar, which is an open boat. Then we have the herring-buss coming gallantly into the harbour, with its sails all set and its flags all flying—its hull deep in the water, which seems to frolic lovingly round its prow as if glad at its safe return. Next, of course, there is a scene on the shore, where the pompous-looking curer and his servants are seen congratulating each other amid the bustle of surrounding commerce and labour; dealers, too, are figured in these engravings, with their wheelbarrows drawn by dogs of unmistakable Dutch build, and there are also to be seen in the picture many other elements of that industry peculiar to all fishing towns, whether ancient or modern.