"Packed like sardines/herrings"

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

     Why sardines?
     In a previous posting, I wrote that people on the Lexington Avenue
subway line were "packed like sardines."
     This is from the BARNHART DICTIONARY OF ETYMOLOGY (Amazon's "Eyes"
recently announced a new book called the CHAMBERS DICTIONARY OF ETYMOLOGY,
but it's BARNHART with a different name):

_sardine_ (...)--v. Informal. to pack closely, crowd, cram.  1895, American
English, from the noun, as used in the phrase _packed like sardines_ (1911).

    Christine Ammer's AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF IDIOMS has "late 1800s"
for _packed in like sardines_.
    The Making of America database has:

March 1855, DEBOW'S REVIEW, pg. 300--...made them lie down in each other's
laps, like _sardines_ in a can, and in this way obtained space for the entire
cargo.  (The article is "The African Slave Trade," and this quotation comes
from "Capt. Canot, Twenty Years of an African Slaver," perhaps referring to
1826--ed.)
March 1869, OVERLAND MONTHLY AND OUT WEST MAGAZINE, pg. 273--...packed like
herrings in a cask, or sardines in a box, we...

    Herrings!  Ah, so sardines have some packing competition!

March 1846, LADIES' REPOSITORY, pg. 67--...packed, close as a box of
herrings...
March 1851, SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, pg. 180--...the guests have as much
elbow room as the herrings in a box...
July 1854, SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER, pg. 430--...packed together like
herrings in a barrel...
September 1870, LADIES' REPOSITORY, pg. 231--...eight babies were packed
around the walls like herrings in a box.
1871, WESTWARD BY RAIL by W. Fraser Rae, pg. 294--The common saying about
being packed as closely as herrings in a barrel...

    It appears from the above that the phrase began as herrings in a
barrel/box/cask, and then became sardines in a can.  This should be recorded.
    The phrase is now "packed as tightly as my travel luggage on a return
trip."