508 Dr KNOX on the Natural History of 



animation until it had been acted on, in all probability, for a con- 

 siderable time, by the gastric juices. These difficulties were, 

 however, at last overcome, and a tolerably perfect specimen will 

 be found represented in the Plate. The herring then lives as 

 the vendace on marine entomostraca or testaceous microscopic 

 insects. When the herring quits the shores after spawning, it 

 must be, as in the case of the salmon, for the purpose of repairing 

 to the natural feeding- ground : by this it is not meant that the 

 entomostraca do not exist on our immediate shores : the contrary 

 of this is well known ; but these cannot, for obvious reasons, be 

 the ground in which they are found in that incredible abund- 

 ance, so as to supply the wants of the herring. The extent of 

 the supply of food may best be imagined by considering the 

 myriads of herrings which usually visit our shores, although we 

 should certainly form a most erroneous idea of the habits of the 

 herring, were we to suppose that they at all times keep together 

 in masses, as seen at the fishing-stations of the herring-fisheries 

 of Great Britain. They (like the vendace) collect together into 

 masses (schools) only previous to their usual spawning-season. 



The circumstances over which this discovery throws light are 

 many. It explains and establishes the striking difference ob- 

 servable in the herring whilst feeding on the entomostraca, and 

 in high condition with the stomach and intestines seemingly 

 constantly empty, and as if purposely prepared and cleansed, con- 

 trasted with the herring when out of condition, as it always is 

 when near the spawning-season, and feeding not unfrequently 

 on the fry of other fishes, and on that of its own species, its 

 stomach and intestines loaded with putrescent debris, itself as 

 an article of food insipid, soft, and useless. All these are facts 

 which flow from one discovery, and which must, I think, in time, 

 on patient inquiry, lead to important conclusions relative to a 

 question which all must, I trust, allow to be national. 



It was not indeed to be expected, that, in the total absence 



