THE HERRING. 449 



As long as the records of history give us information, herj-ings 

 appear to have abounded on the east coast of the British Islands, and 

 there is nothing to show, so far as I am aware, that, taking an average 

 of years, they were ever either more or less numerous than they are at 

 present. But, in remarkable contrast with this constancy, the shoals of 

 herrings have elsewhere exhibited a change capriciousness visiting a 

 given locality for many years in great numbers, and then suddenly 

 disappearing. Several well-marked examples of this fickleness are 

 recorded on the west coast of Scotland ; but the most remarkable is 

 that furnished by the fisheries of Bohiislan, a province which lies on 

 the southwestern shore of the Scandinavian peninsula. Here a variety 

 known as the " old " or " great " herring, after being so extremely 

 abundant, for about sixty years, as to give rise to a great industry, 

 disappeared in the year 1808, as suddenly as they made their appear- 

 ance, and have not since been seen in any number. 



The desertion of their ordinary grounds by the herring has been 

 attributed to all imaginable causes, from fishing on a Sunday to the 

 offense caused to the fish by the decomposing carcasses of their breth- 

 ren, dropped upon the bottom out of the nets. The truth is, that 

 absolutely nothing is known on the subject, and that little is likely 

 to be known until careful and long-continued meteorological and 

 zoological observations have furnished definite information respecting 

 the changes which take place in the temperature of the sea, and the 

 distribution of the pelagic Crustacea which constitute the chief food 

 of the herring-shoals. The institution of systematic observations of 

 this kind is an object of international importance, toward the attain- 

 ment of which the British, Scandinavian, Dutch, and French Govern- 

 ments might wisely make a combined effort. 



A great fuss has been made about trawlers working over the 

 spawning-grounds of the herring. "It stands to reason," we were 

 told, that they must destroy an immense quantity of the spawn. In- 

 deed, this looked so reasonable that we inquired very particularly into 

 a case of the alleged malpractice which was complained of on the 

 east coast of Scotland, near Pittenweem. Off this place there is a 

 famous spawning-ground known as the Traith hole, and we were told 

 that the trawlers worked vigorously over the spot immediately after 

 the herring had deposited their spawn. Of course our first proceed- 

 ing was to ask the trawlers why they took the trouble of doing what 

 looked like wanton mischief. And their answer was reasonable enough. 

 It was to catch the prodigious abundance of flat-fish which were to 

 be found on the Traith at that time. Well, then, why did the flat- 

 fish congregate there ? Simply to feed on herring-eggs, which seem 

 to be a sort of flat-fishes' caviare. The stomachs of the flat-fish 

 brought up by the trawl were, in fact, crammed with masses of her- 

 ring-eggs. 



Thus every flat-fish caught by the trawl was an energetic destroyer 



YOL. XIX. 29 



