THE NORWEGIAN HERRING-FISHERIES. 105 



warmer water with the upper and colder. Of this, Boeck gives many 

 examples, partly from his own observations and partly from those of 

 the government inspector. It is important to keep this in mind when- 

 ever the influence of the cold is spoken of. 



From all this it will be seen that neither the character of tbe bottom 

 of the sea, nor the direction or force of the wind, nor the temperature of 

 the air and sea by themselves, exercise an influence on the fisheries suffi- 

 ciently great to cause their cessation," but that these various influences 

 only modify the time and place of the fisheries. The schools of herring 

 that come in from the ocean, seek the coast notwithstanding these influ- 

 ences. 



The question, '"' Where does the spring-herring keep itself, when it is 

 not uear the coast V ' has been discussed from the earliest times. Shortly 

 before the fisheries commence, the herring may be seen approaching the 

 coast, followed by whales, and the sea then frequently appears quite 

 green from the large masses of fish seen near the surface. After the 

 herring has spawned and gone out into the sea, it disappears. In very 

 early times it was supposed that the Polar Sea was the true home of the 

 herring. The Dutch fishermen on the Shetland Islands noticed that it 

 came from the north. It also approached the coasts of Scotland from 

 the north. The Irish saw the herring pass their coasts from north to 

 south, and the same was observed on the coasts of Norway. It is there- 

 fore not at all astonishing that its home was supposed to be in the north, 

 and that the Polar Sea, which, according to the strange fancies of those 

 times, hid so many wonders, was the place from which the herring emi- 

 grated every year. The English writer, Dodd, in a book entitled "Atlas 

 Maritimus et Commercialism* published in 1728, started the theory that 

 the herring emigrates from the Polar Sea. But this theory is brought 

 out in a clearer and more attractive manner in a work by Johann Ander- 

 son, burgomaster of Hamburg, and well known for his learning, entitled 

 *' .Wachrichten von Island, Grbnlandf 1 &c, Hamburg, 174G, {Account of Ice- 

 land, Greenland, <£c.,) which appeared in a Danish translation in the jear 

 1781. He first remarks that several well-known persons had seen her- 

 ring and the bones of herring lying on the rocks of the coast of Green- 

 land. He then shows that the whale, the seal, and the porpoise, whose 

 favorite food is the herring, have their home in those Arctic seas, and 

 that, therefore, the herring must be found there. Far up toward the 

 North Pole, under the broad, icy plain, which never melts, the herring 

 was supposed to live quietly, because neither whales, sharks, nor men 

 could pursue it there ; there it also spawned and increased in such num- 

 bers that the Polar Sea became too narrow for them, and thence colonies, 

 compelled by actual necessity, emigrated toward the south, just as bees 

 swarm in summer. When such a school of herring issues forth from its 

 icy home, it is immediately attacked by its enemies, who pursue it dur- 



* See, also, Dodd (J. S.) Essay towards a Natural History of the Herring. Loudon* 

 1752.— Ed. 



