NEW CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HERRING-QUESTION, ETC. 201 



■was no, or at least a very inconsiderable, summer-herring fishery in the 

 southern district — and that he was prevented from visiting the northern 

 fisheries by Mr. Sars's using the greater portion of the appropriation 

 made for both of them for his journeys to the Lofoten Islands, or in 

 some other manner. However this may be, we cannot but side with 

 Mr. Boeck in his protest against the accusations that he systematically 

 maintained the Mstoric mode of investigation, in opposition to the scien- 

 tific mode. He also shows that the different years of the herring given 

 by Sars are nearly the same as those given some years ago by Mr.Dahl, 

 of Bergen,* with the difference only that the latter gave to the spring- 

 herring an age of six years instead of five, which opinion one often 

 hears expressed on the western coast, (and which, as will be seen from 

 Sars's report for 1873, he also shares.) Mr. Boeck, in this important 

 point — the relation between the summer-herring and the spring-her- 

 ring — does not express an essentially different view. He fully agrees 

 with Mr. Sars that the summer-herriug is nothing but the spring-herring 

 at a different age; but he does not think that this is the case with all 

 summer-herriug ; and he maintains that there are really peculiar coast- 

 races of herring on the coasts of Sweden and Norway,! and that they 

 may spawn at a later season than the spring-herring, viz, in April on 

 the coast of Norway, and in May on the Swedish coast of Bohuslen. 

 In the fact that toward the end of November, on the northern coast, he 

 had an opportunity of examining a " merchants' herring," which was 

 full of loose roe, he finds a proof that the autumn-herring (probably 

 when it remains in the fjords) can spawn before the herring's usual 

 spawning-time in spring, at which time Boeck is also inclined to think 

 the majority of the autumn-herring spawns; and this early-spawning 

 autumn-herring could then, if we understand Mr. Boeck correctly, also 

 be considered as a separate race of herrings. 



Boeck further remarks that experience shows that if in a certain 

 place there is during one year a rich spring-herring fishery, such fact 

 does not justify the hope that the next winter or spring there will be 

 a rich spring-herring fishery in the same place. "If there should be 



* Dahl's years, with which Sars now entirely agrees, were the following : First year, 

 Musse ; second year, Aesja ; third year, Christiania herring; fourth year, middle her- 

 ring ; fifth year, merchants' herring ; sixth year, spring-herring. It has, therefore, 

 also been supposed that the spring-herring fisheries occur in periods of six years, on the 

 idea that the herring, for the purpose of spawning, would return to the place where it 

 had been hatched ; and in many cases this idea has been correct. 



t An article in the " Throndhjems Stiftsavis" for 1862 makes the following distinc- 

 tion between two varieties of the summer-herring : " The sea-herring," which during 

 summer comes in from the high sea, and " the fjord-herring ," which remains in the 

 fjords, and during the summer-herring fisheries mixes with the incoming sea-herring. 

 Boeck, however, supposes that such coast-races have originated, and still originate, by 

 more or less developed sea-herring going into the deeper and more secluded iulets, and 

 remaining there. Their young may possibly again become sea-herring, but more per- 

 manent varieties may also form in such places, e. g., the Hoxfjordherring, the Idefjord- 

 herring, &c. 



