190 CLUPEID.E. 



has been known to enter the estuary." In June, July, and 

 August, Herrings are taken off the Dunbar and Berwick 



o * o 



coasts in considerable number, from whence the Edinburgh 

 market is abundantly supplied, when scarcely a single Her- 

 ring is to be seen higher in the Frith of a size worth the 



O o 



notice of the fishermen. 



The Herring having spawned, retires to deep water, and 

 the fishing ends for that season. While inhabiting the 

 depths of the ocean, its food is said by Dr. Knox to consist 

 principally of minute entomostracous animals ; but it is cer- 

 tainly less choice in its selection when near the shore. Dr. 

 Neill found five young Herrings in the stomach of a large 

 female Herring ; he has also known them to be taken by the 

 fishermen on their lines, the hooks of which were baited with 

 limpets ; and they have been repeatedly caught by anglers 

 with an artificial fly. They are known to feed upon minute 

 Crustacea, small medusse, and the spawn and fry of fishes. 

 The Rev. Robert Holds worth wrote me word that in Janu- 

 ary 1823s he took a small Bass three inches long from the 

 stomach of a Herring, caught at Kingswear, in the river Dart. 

 The young abound in the shallow water all round our shores 

 during the summer months. I have seen them taken off 

 Brighton in the small-meshed nets which are there used to 

 draw for Atherine ; and they are caught by boys while 

 angling from piers and rocks at various places along the 

 southern coast. They are very abundant on the Yorkshire 

 coast, where they are called Herring-sile ; and they swarm 

 among the Orkney and Shetland Islands during the whole of 

 the summer. They remain at the mouth of the Thames dur- 

 ing their first autumn and winter : many are caught on the 

 coasts of Essex and Kent in the nets used for taking Sprats. 

 From repeated examinations, I am induced to believe these 

 young fish do not mature any roe during their first year. A 

 few are occasionally caught by the net in Dagcnham Breach, 



