THE 



POPULAR scie:^ce 



MONTHLY. 



AUGUST, 1881. 

 THE HEEEING.* 



By Professor T. H. HUXLEY. 



IT is now nineteen years since my attention was first specially direct- 

 ed to the natural history of the herring, and to the many impor- 

 tant economical and legal questions connected with the herring-fish- 

 eries. As a member of two successive Royal Commissions, it fell to 

 my lot to take part in inquiries held at every important fishing-station 

 in the United Kingdom between the years 1862 and 1865, and to hear 

 all that practical fishermen had to tell about the matter ; while I had 

 free access to the official records of the Fishery Boards. Nor did I 

 neglect such opportunities as presented themselves of studying the fish 

 itself, and of determining the scientific value of the terms by which, 

 in the laneuaffe of fishermen, the various conditions of the herrins; are 

 distinguished. 



Diligent sifting of the body of evidence thus collected and passed 

 under review led to the satisfactory clearing away, in my own mind, 

 of some of the obscurities which, at that time, surrounded the natural 

 history of the fish. But many problems remained, the solution of 

 which was not practicable by investigations which, after all, were only 

 incidents in the course of a large inquiry, embracing a vast number of 

 t Oleics besides herrings and herring-fisheries ; and it is only within the 

 last few years that the labors of the German West Baltic Fishery 

 Commission have made such large additions to the state of our knowl- 

 edge in 1865 that the history of the herring is brought within meas- 

 urable distance of completeness. 



Considering the vast importance of the herring-fisheries of the 

 eastern counties, it occurred to me, when the President of the National 



* A lecture delivered at the National Fishery Exhibition, Norwich, April 21, 1881. 

 TOL. XIX. 28 



