Citations:mattie

• 1878, Francis Trevelyan Buckland, Sir Spencer Walpole, Archibald Young, Report on the Herring Fisheries of Scotland, page 43:

  The immature herrings become matties in the end of June.

• 1884, William Houghton, The Natural History of Commercial Sea Fishes of Great Britain and Ireland, page 304:

  Herrings being pre-eminently gregarious the less matured "matties" would join in the movement forward and follow their leaders; and this would, I imagine, explain why not only full herrings but "matties" and quite small herrings are found to migrate shorewards.

• 1898, The Scots Law Times, page 113:

  Forbes examined some of the herrings, and advised the defender not to take delivery unless he obtained a deduction in price, on the ground that among the "unbranded matties" there were a quantity of undersized herrings.