434 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Fishery Exhibition did me the honor to ask me to address you, that 

 nothing coukl be more likely to interest my audience than a summary 

 statement of what is now really known about a fish which, from a 

 fisherman's point of view, is probably the chief of fishes. 



I am aware that I may lay myself open to the application of the 

 proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle if I commence my observa- 

 tions with a description of the most important distinctive characters 

 of a fish which is so familiar to the majority of my hearers. And 

 perhaps it is as well that I should at once express my belief that most 

 of you are as little likely to mistake a herring for anything else as I 

 am. Nay, I will go further. I have reason to believe that any her- 

 ring-merchant, in a large way of business, who may be here, knows 

 these fish so much better than I do that he is able to discriminate a 

 Yarmouth herring from a Scotch herring, and both from a Norway 

 herring ; a feat which I could not undertake to perform. But then it 

 is possible that I may know some things that he does not. He is very 

 unlike other fishermen and fish-merchants with whom I have met, if 

 he has any but the vaguest notions of the way of life of the fish ; or 

 if he has heard anything about those singularities of its organization 

 which perplex biologists ; or if he can say exactly how and why he 

 knows that a herring is not a sprat, a shad, or a pilchard. And all 

 kinds of real knowledge and insight into the facts of nature do so bear 

 upon one another and turn out in strange ways practically helpful that 

 I propose to pour out my scientific budget, in the hope that something 

 more may come of it than the gratification of intelligent curiosity. 



If any one wants to exemplify the meaning of the word "fish," he 

 can not choose a better animal than a herring. The body, tapering to 

 each end, is covered with thin, flexible scales, which are very easily 

 rubbed off. The taper head, with its underhung jaw, is smooth and 

 scaleless on the top ; the large eye is partly covered by two folds of 

 transj^arent skin, like eyelids only immovable and with the slit be- 

 tween them vertical instead of horizontal ; the cleft behind the gill- 

 cover is very wide, and, when the cover is raised, the large red gills 

 which lie beneath it are freely exposed. The rounded back bears the 

 single moderately long dorsal fin about its middle. The tail-fin is 

 deeply cleft, and on careful inspection small scales are seen to be con- 

 tinued from the body, on to both its upper and its lower lobes, but 

 there is no longitudinal scaly fold on either of these. The belly comes 

 to an edge, covered by a series of sharply-keeled bony shields between 

 the throat and the vent ; and behind the last is the anal fin, which is 

 of the same length as the dorsal fin. There is a pair of fore-limbs, or 

 pectoral fins, just behind the head ; and a pair of hind-limbs, or ven- 

 tral fins, are situated beneath the dorsal fin, a little behind a vertical 

 line drawn from its front edge, and a long way in front of the vent. 

 These fins have bony supports or rays, all of which are soft and 

 jointed. 



