NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 245 



I saw hundreds of herring left on the pier, or thrown into the 

 sea at Tarbert, that had been taken the night before, but from 

 softening and rupturing they had become so mutilated in appear- 

 ance that they were considered unfit to be sent to market, not 

 on account of the bad condition of these rejected fish themselves, 

 but for the unsound appearance they gave to the cargo. 



Some of the fishermen and curers are strongly inclined to 

 believe that the " gut poke " herring is a distinct variety, which 

 continually feed on such fare, and to prove this they say that 

 these herring sometimes leave suddenly, and are succeeded by 

 herring of a better quality. Be that as it may, they seem all to 

 agree that the herring generally are in this state throughout that 

 district, from about the beginning of March till about the beginning 

 of July, and from that time, as the season advanced, the stomach 

 of the herring got less and less full, and the fish more and more 

 fat till about August and September, when it was rare to find a 

 herring with food of any kind in its stomach, that organ, in most 

 cases, having become contracted into a very small gut-like sac. Yet 

 in August and September I have met with herring at times having 

 their stomachs greatly distended with food ; but in these months 

 the food consists generally of larger animals, such as small fish, 

 or members of the shrimp family. All that I found so crammed 

 with food neither contained roe nor milt. 



In August, 18G7, I had a few herrings opened which were 

 taken off the Cumbraes, and I found their stomachs all exclu- 

 sively packed with the rare stomapod (Thysanopoda Couchii). It 

 is the specimen No. 1 now exhibited. 



Again this season, in August, on one occasion I met with others 

 similarly distended — specimen No. 2 — with the black eyes of the 

 captives shining through the thin integuments of the stomacli; 

 but what these are I cannot say, as they are too much decomposed 

 to determine. This season from time to time I have examined 

 the stomachs of a great many herrings; but from the beginning of 

 September till now I have not found one containing food, but 

 generally a little transparent mucus, and sometimes a little air, 

 and however anomalous this may appear, the stomach was gene- 

 rally covered with fat, unless where the roe and milt were 

 becoming large. In such cases, when these increased the fat 

 appeared to become less. Tliese facts are all the more curious 

 that in the months of August and September entomostraca and 



2 G 



