512 Dr KNOX on the Natural History of 



APPENDIX TO PART II. 



Opinions of Authors, SfC. 



I HAVE ever observed that real practical fishermen, those whose experience is most 

 extensive, have uniformly stated the nature of the food of the herring to he most mys- 

 terious, and have denied, with the pertinacity excusable to truth, that any food recog- 

 nisable by ordinary sight, can be detected in the stomach of the herring, if the fish be at 

 all in tolerable condition. They knew that occasionally, and in a few, the fry of other 

 fishes, and even of the herring, might be found in their stomachs ; but this, with much 

 judgment, they considered as in no shape connected with the actual nature of the usual 

 proper food of the herring, whilst in the deep seas, or even on our coasts. The preceding 

 discoveries shewing, that by the microscope alone (an instrument of course never used 

 by the practical fisherman), that peculiar food on which all the good qualities of the 

 herring seem to depend, and which they seek for at a distance from our shores, confirms 

 the judgment of the practical fisherman and unbiassed observer, unconnected with trade, 

 against the coarse and ill digested remarks of the half educated, who, misinformed 

 almost on every point, commence by supposing that herrings must live on fishes smaller 

 than themselves, young crabs, lobsters, and in short, whatever they can catch, forget- 

 ting, at the same time, and not being able to understand, that the discovery of the food 

 of the vendace (corregonus), decides the question as to tliejbod of its allied genus the Her- 

 ring ; and on the real food being discovered and pointed out, together with the er- 

 roneous nature of their statements, finish by asserting, with amazing effrontery, that the 

 food of the herring had been known to all scientific men for centuries ! 



The deplorable obstinacy and obliquity of reasoning which lead to an assertion of this 

 kind, become manifest by considering the following very brief account of the most re- 

 cent inquiries into the food of the herring, as contained in a work of easy access and 

 of the highest value the Transactions of the Highland Society of Scotland. The ex- 

 tracts, I am aware, will neither silence the pseudo-philanthropist nor the popularly edu- 

 cated man ; but it will convince any unprejudiced person, that assertions like those above 

 alluded to, are without the slightest foundation. 



The reply of the practical fisherman to the ill founded assertion of the half educated, 

 who pretend an acquaintance with the natural food of the herring, vendace, salmon, 

 &c. was clearly expressed, and nearly in the following terms : 



Why is it, say they, that thousands of prime salmon have been opened and the sto- 

 mach and intestines found invariably empty ? Why is it that, if the herring be in good 

 condition and fit for the food of man, the stomach and intestines present the same ap- 

 pearance as in the salmon, that is, empty apparently of food, with clear and somitrans- 

 parent tunics, free from all symptoms of putrescence and of coarse intestinal products, 

 as if they had purposely been so prepared ? Now the fishermen not knowing what to 



