CHAP. xix. SIZE OF THE HERRING SHOALS. 327 



The herring, like the cod, is fond of cold and tempe- 

 rate climates. In winter it resorts to deep water ; but no 

 sooner has spring returned, and the ice disappeared, 

 than the herring arrives in immense shoals on all the 

 coasts in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, especially on the 

 southern coast of Newfoundland, in the Gut of Canso, 

 at the Magdalen Islands, and in the Bay of Chaleurs. 



Owing to some cause, which no one has been able to 

 explain satisfactorily, the herring does not visit the coast 

 of Labrador in the spring, or, if it does, it is only in small 

 numbers. 



At Pleasant Bay, in the Magdalen Islands, herrings make 

 their appearance at the beginning of May, and almost 

 always in large shoals. They come very near the shore, 

 entering even into the lagunes of House Harbour, and 

 sometimes in such dense masses that the pressure upon 

 each other, often increased by the force of the tide, kills 

 them by tens of thousands. 



The female herrings come very near the shore in calm 

 weather, and generally at night, to deposit their ova, in 

 from one fathom to three fathoms' depth of water. The 

 males follow, and, swimming above the ova, shed over 

 them their milt. 



It is impossible without seeing it to for?ii a correct idea 

 of the prodigious abundance of the ova of the herring 

 deposited at the Magdalen Islands, and generally on all 

 the coasts where the herring spawns.* Captain Fortin 

 states in his report on Canadian Fisheries in the Gulf that 

 he has seen the shore at Pleasant Bay covered two or three 



- ( 'ajilaiii i'V.nin's Itepurt mi the Fisheries of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 



