136 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



serve as a guide, but simply more or less well-founded suppositions. In 

 Doctor Fagrcsus's work, " Anmdrlcningar rorande sillJisJce och tranlcolceri," 

 which is embodied in the " Trangrwmact," x it is supposed, (as Bodd 

 and Anderson first suggested, and after them Pennant and others,) that 

 the herring had a common place of sojourn near the north pole, from 

 whence large schools emigrated every year to those places where herring- 

 fisheries were carried on. 2 This supposition was eagerly taken up by the 

 oil-refiners and other comparatively educated persons on the coast of Bo- 

 hus-Lau, 3 but did not coincide with the opinion of the uneducated fisher- 

 men. These latter, who distinguished the " old " herring as a " regular 

 sea-herring " 4 from the kind of herring peculiar to the Skagerack, seem 

 to have considered the North Sea as its proper home ; 5 an opinion which 

 Professor Nilsson considered so entirely without foundation, that he did 

 not think it worth refuting. 6 This opinion of the Bohus-liin fishermen 

 has been taken up by Norwegian naturalists, who had made a specialty 

 of the study of the herring and the herring-fisheries. 7 Professor Nilsson, 

 on the other hand, and those who unconditionally followed him, sup- 

 posed that it only went a short distance from the west coast of Sweden, 

 " and certainly never went beyond the Skagerack." 8 This opinion of 

 Professor Nilsson was'based on the supposition that the herring, when 

 not an object of fishery on the coast, lived at the bottom of the deep- 

 sea valleys or basins* outside the coast; and he maintained his view 

 chiefly by the fact that herring are often found in the stomach of the 

 codfish. 9 Even Axel Boeclc approved of this last-mentioned opin- 

 ion, 10 against which subsequently well-founded objections have been 

 raised by G. 0. Sars 11 and G. C. Cederstrom, 12 which, doubtless, will lead 

 to an entirely different view regarding this most important point in the 

 question of the herring-fisheries. 



Closely connected with this is the question regarding the fate of the 

 old herring after abandoning the spawning-places on the coast of Bohus- 

 lan. Thirty or forty years ago our most prominent zoologists sup- 

 posed that the whole race of herrings, with the exception of the young 

 left on the coast from last year's spawning, were probably scattered 



1 Trangrumsacten, pp. 95-150. 



2 Nilsson, Handl. ror. Sillf., pp. 24-28. 



3 Trangrumsacten, pp. 162, 163.— Dubb, K. Vet. Akad:s Handl. f. 1817, pp. 43. 

 *Dubb, K. Vet.Akad:s Handl. f. 1817, p. 44. 



6 See Handl. ror. Sillf., pp. 53,57. 

 e Handl. ror. Sillf., p. 68. 



7 Boeclc, A., Om Silden og Sildefiskerierne, pp. 37, 45, 46.— Sars, G. O., Indberetuing f. 

 1873, p. 58. 



e Handl. ror. Sillf., pp. 8, 68.— Nya Handl. ror. Sillf., p. x. 



9 Handl. ror. Sillf., pp. 7, 8, 42, 43.— Skandinav. Fauna, iv, pp. 503-508. 



i°Om Silden og Sildefiskerierne, p. 47.— Tidakrift for Fiskeri. VII, pp. 18, 19. 



1J Indberetning f. 1869, pp. 60-61 ; f. 1873, pp. 46-51. 



"Naturkistoriska betraktelser och iaktagelser innefattande bfinvisniugar till lampliga 

 siitt att forska for att kuuua tilltbrlitligt utreda sillfiskarnes tillhall ocb vaudringar. 

 Stockholm, 1871. Tillagg, pp. 1-3. 



