the Salmon, Herring, and Vendace. 513 



make of all thii , assert boldly that these fish live by suction ; unaccustomed to attach a 

 precise meaning to his language, this word suction comes in the place of an idea, though 

 it be in this particular case a phrase altogether unintelligible ; but if they really attach 

 any meaning to the word, they mean that the herring lives after the mode of plants. 

 Modern systematic works on natural history, so far as I have been able to observe, 

 maintain a profound silence as to the food of the herring, and indeed their observations 

 generally shew, that no dependence whatever can be placed on any published account 

 of the natural history of this most important fish. In such works, all mention of the 

 food is either omitted, or, what is much worse, mistaken, and consequently their habits, 

 and I may venture to say also their habitat or place of residence in the ocean. 



The Rev. Dr WALKER observes, " that he had examined the stomach of herrings at 

 different seasons of the year, without finding in it any sort of palpable aliment." P. 274. 

 " On their first appearance off the Lewis in the month of July, when they were full 

 grown and very fat, nothing appeared in their stomach but a little slime." P. 275. 



" During the residence of the herrings on the coast of Scotland, we know of no food 

 they use, and it is probable they require little or none, except some attenuated alimen- 

 tary matter which the sea-water may afford them." P. 275. 



" We think it not altogether improbable that they may live on a small species of me- 

 dusa, or some similar marine animal, which is not as yet known to naturalists." P. 276 *. 



Mr J. MACKENZIE asserts that " it has been frequently observed that the small fry suck 

 their nutrition out of the marine algae, or from some matter adhering to them." P. 313. 

 But it is almost superfluous to remark, nothing of the kind has since been observed by 

 any one, so far as is recorded. 



* Contrast these cautious observations of this strictly correct, scientific, and candid person, and 

 the opinions of the gentlemen who follow, with the following " opinions" of persons misnamed prac- 

 tical men, and who, having sold herrings, and at one period, perhaps, attended a course of lectures 

 on natural history, fancy themselves competent to speak and write about zoological matters. A per- 

 son of this kind (to whom I have replied elsewhere) has made the following extraordinary statements 

 and discoveries : 1st, That " the Bounty System placed the Scottish herrings in direct and success, 

 ful competition with the herrings cured by the Dutch in most of the markets of the Continent." My 

 reply is, that the whole of the exports of herrings from Britain to the Continent of Europe in 1830, 

 amounted to 24,960 barrels, and that the Dutch trade to Germany alone used to be 130,000. 



2dly, He asserts that " the Dutch fish close to our own shores." My answer is, that 1 know the 

 contrary. 



3dly, He states that the inferiority in " the Scottish herrings at some localities is owing to their 

 not being bled or gutted immediately when taken out of the sea." My answer is, that the Lochfine 

 herrings are the best in Scotland, and they are not gutted at all, so far as I have observed ; the gills 

 and heart merely seem to be removed. 



4thly, He affirms that " the entomostraca are young crabs and lobsters ;" which is just as if we 

 were to say, that sheep are young oxen, not yet grown. 



5thly, He has misquoted the Report of the Herring Fisheries, and finally asserted, that " the 

 food of the herring, as I have described it, was known to scientific men for hundreds of years." In 

 1833, Professor RENNIE, of the King's College, London, declares the food of the herring to be alto- 

 gether unknown ; but a perusal of the quotations from the Transactions of the Highland Society will 

 convince my readers that I could not trust myself with a reply suited to such an assertion. 



