146 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



same opinion as Professor Nilsson, and at first thought that the herring 

 became capable of spawning at the age of five years, but afterward as- 

 signed the age of six years. 1 



Fishermen generally assume that the small-herring has roe and milt 

 during the spring and early summer, and some of them have observed 

 the young of the small-herring some time, after spawning. The spawn- 

 ing of the small-herring may, like that of the herring proper, be delayed 

 or hastened by the weather, but otherwise does' not seem to change as 

 to the time when it takes place. In the reports of Mr. P. Clancey, made 

 in his capacity of superintendent of herring-fisheries, to the Eoyai 

 Chamber of Commerce, it is said, e. g., that on the 11th March, 1811, 

 " herring and small-herring were caught having both roe and milt," 2 

 which implies that spawning would have taken place at most from 

 three to four months later. Hence we may conclude that one cannot 

 assume any advance in the spawning-time of the small-herring, in order 

 to explain Nilsson's, Wilhelm von Wright's, and Ekstrom's different views, 

 since these men take the autumn to be the spawning-season of the' small- 

 herring. 3 Prof. C. J. Sundevall has found that the small-herring on the 

 coast of the Stockholm district spawns at the end of June and in July, 4 

 and therefore about the same time as in Bohuslan. Kroger says of 

 the Clupea sprattus that " its spawning-season is mostly in August, but 

 that it begins as early as the latter half of June, and sometimes extends 

 to September," 5 and of the Clupea Schoneveldi that " in males caught 

 early in the spring the milt was found to be considerably developed," 6 

 which points to a somewhat earlier spawning-season for the last-named 

 variety. 



The few observations which I have been able to make on this point 

 prove that the spawning of the small-herring on the central coast begins 

 at the end of May or the first of June. Its spawning-season may, pos- 

 sibly, begin somewhat earlier on the northern coast and a little later 

 on the southern coast. 7 Small-herring caught in the autumn or winter 

 never have any roe or milt, a circumstance which could easily be ascer- 

 tained in the preparation of the so-called boneless anchovies ; and yet 

 they are not very thin either, which shows that they cannot have 

 spawned immediately before the commencement of the fisheries. The 

 small-herring which I had occasion to observe during the spring is 



'Report for 1872, pp. 38, 39; Report for 1873, p. 44, note. 



s Cederstrom, Fish-Culture ami the Swedish Fisheries, p. 215. 



*Nilson, Prodromus Ichthyologiae Scandinavicae, p. 22. Scaudinavisk Fauna, IV, 

 p. 521. Wright, W. von, Reports on the Herring-Fisheries, pp. 167, 175. Ekstrom, Prac- 

 tical Essay, pp. 9, 103 ; Review of the Transactions of the Royal Academy of Sciences, 

 for 1844, p. 26. 



* Reports of the Royal Economical Society for the District of Stockholm, VI, pp. 

 109, 185-187. 



e Denmark's Fish, III, p. 191. 



•Denmark's Fish, III, p. 201. 



''Nilsson, Scaudinavisk Fauna, IV, p. 521. 



