There are three distinct herring arrivals, one beginning in February and March; these fish are small, and somewhat lean. About the beginning of April the run commences; these are finer, full of spawn, and in high condition: in June and July, and extending through the summer, small shoals occasionally make their appearance, but never as fine as the April fish. Toward the middle of April herring legions commence arriving from seaward in real earnest; brigade follows brigade in rapid succession, until every bay, harbour, inlet, estuary, and lagoon is literally alive with them. Close in their rear, as camp-followers hang on the skirts of an army, come shoals of dogfish, salmon, and fish-eating sea-birds. I have often seen a shoal of herrings, when hotly pursued by the dogfish, dash into a little rock-bound nook, the water lashed into white spray by a thousand tails and fins, plied with all the power and energy the poor struggling fish could exert to escape the dreaded foe. A wall of rocks, right and left, ahead the shelving shingle—on they go, and hundreds lie high-and-dry, panting on the pebbles. It is just as well perhaps to die there, as to be torn, bitten, and eaten by the piratical cannibals that are waging fearful havoc on the imprisoned shoal. The dogfish wound ten times as many as they eat, and, having satiated and gorged their greedy stomachs, swim lazily away, leaving the dead, dying, and disabled to the tender mercies of the sea-birds watching the battle, ever ready to pounce upon the unprotected, and end its miseries. Garnering the herring-crop is the Coast Indian’s best ‘sea-harvest;’ lodges spring up like mushrooms along the edges of the bays and harbours; large fleets of canoes dot the water in every direction, their swarthy crews continually loading them with glittering fish; paddling ashore, they hand the cargo to the female part of the community, and then start again for a similar freight. Indians have various plans for catching herrings. Immense numbers are taken with small hand-nets, literally dipping them out of the water into the canoes; they also employ the ‘rake,’ already described as used for taking candle-fish. One savage, sitting in the stern of his canoe, paddles along, keeping in the herring shoal; another, having the rounded part of the rake firmly fixed in both hands, sweeps it through the crowded fish, from before aft, using all his force: generally speaking, every tooth has a herring impaled on it, sometimes three or four. It is astonishing how rapidly an Indian will fill his canoe with herrings, using this rude and primitive contrivance.