200 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OP FISH AND FISHERIES. 



at least not according to the usual method. What causes the herring 

 to remain so far from the coast has, up to this date, (1872,) not yet be- 

 come known. Mr. Sars could not say either what favorable circum- 

 stances should induce the hope that the herring-fisheries on the west 

 coast of Norway would again return to the old places, or what unfavor- 

 able circumstances kept the majority of the herring during the two pre- 

 ceding years away from the fishing-places. (We shall again return to 

 this question.) Mr. Boeck furthermore proves, what need not be men- 

 tioned here, as it has been spoken of in the " TidssJcriftfor Fislceri, v 7de 

 Aargang, p. 13, that under no circumstances has the cold anything to 

 do with it. He also protests against having advanced the opinion that 

 a herring-period (i. e., a period of successful herring-fisheries) should 

 now have come to an end as far as Norway is concerned. He has only, 

 from the sources accessible to him, cited a number of facts " which show 

 under what conditions the herring-fisheries came to an end in former 

 times and in different localities; how they again returned, and in what 

 manner the fisheries were carried on year after year. From these his- 

 toric facts, a certain law can be deduced regarding the movements of 

 the great masses of herring, which do not come and go irregularly 

 on certain parts of the coast, but whose movements occur with a 

 certain regularity." He lets every one from this draw his own con- 

 clusions, which he considers justified, and gives his opinion on the 

 whole with great reserve : " That even if it does not follow, from all which 

 has been said, that the spring-herring will leave our coasts, (the south- 

 ern spring-herring district,) all the appearances are not favorable to the 

 opposite opinion." We must agree with Mr. Sars that in so far as Mr. 

 Boeck has given any opinion on this question, it must be that the appear- 

 ances are not favorable for the nearest future of the Norwegian spring- 

 herring fisheries ; but whether or not Mr. Boeck will stand by this proph- 

 ecy, whose correctness only the future can show, it seems that the expe- 

 rience of last year will bear it out. The important question, why does 

 the herring during a certain period of years go to the inner spawning- 

 places, while during another period it remains outside, has so far (1872) 

 not been answered; just as little as the question, what may cause the 

 gradual change in the spawning-season, which, according to Boeck's 

 investigations, always seems to precede the end of the herring-fisheries. 

 Mr. Sars believes, as we shall see in another chapter, (1873,) that he has 

 found satisfactory answers to all these questions ; but we have not yet 

 reached this point. 



Mr. Boeck says, in the "Kemarks" with which he accompanies Mr. 

 Sars's "'Beport" in the " Morgenbladet^ of November 5, that in his work 

 on the herring he has already hinted at the same view regarding the 

 relation of the summer-herring and the spring-herring which Mr. Sars 

 has advanced, and that the reason why he (Boeck) did not describe this 

 relation more fully was merely a want of opportunity to visit the sum- 

 mer-herring fisheries farther north — during the years in question there 



