514 Dr KNOX on the Natural History of 



The compiler of the article " Herring Fisheries," in the Supplement to the Encyc. 

 Brit. p. 257, gives a very amusing account of the habits and food of the herring ; unfor- 

 tunately though very romantic, it is an error from beginning to end. " It has been 

 generally thought,'' observes this ingenious writer, whose name I do not know, " that 

 their winter habitation is within the arctic circle, under those vast fields of ice which cover 

 the northern ocean, where it fattens on the swarms of shrimps and other marine insects 

 which abound in those seas, and which afford also the principal food of the whale. Here 

 it is supposed they deposit their spawn, and on the return of the sun towards the north- 

 ern hemisphere, again rush forth in those multitudinous hosts which exceed the power 

 of the imagination to conceive." 



FABRICIUS, in his Fauna Grosnlandica, 1780, p. 182, says of the " Clupea Harengis,'' 

 " De cibo ejus nil certi indicare queo dum nunquam escam in ventriculo ejus inveni." 



" On what they live (observes Mr DRUMMOND, p. 7. vol. iii.) we can only form a 

 conjecture. I have seen their stomachs opened at all seasons of the year in which they 

 appear here, but never found any thing in them, excepting some slimy matter. The 

 same peculiarity is to be found in the whole genus : it is to be observed in many fishes, 

 that while the milts and roes are in an increasing state, they are very careless of food. 

 The shad, the herring, the pilchard, the smelt, come to us all fat, and daily decline until 

 they leave us when shotten. A friend of mine, when at Loch Lhynn, near Fort Wil- 

 liam, this season, upon the arrival of the boats, cut up many herrings, but never dis- 

 covered any thing in their stomachs : the fishermen, however, assured him that they fre- 

 quently got in the foul, or spent, fish, several of their own fry, sand-eels, &c. It has 

 been asserted, that, to the northward of Shetland, they feed and fatten on a species of 

 medusa which is to be seen there in great abundance. I cannot help combating this 

 opinion, as I have observed various blubbers, especially that kind called by sailors the 

 Portuguese Man of War floating in the Atlantic, where different fishes swarm around 

 it and never offered to touch it. I never took any of these blubbers in my hand without 

 having it disagreeably blistered ; I naturally conclude that they cannot be a delicate 

 morsel for the herring." 



Mr DRUMMOND was the first, or among the first, to question the views of Mr PEN- 

 NANT regarding the migration of the herring, denying, on probable grounds, that the 

 range of its migration was so extensive as that distinguished naturalist imagined, and 

 viewing the notions of its proceeding at each migration towards the icy seas of the Arctic 

 circle as a mere fable. On these grounds, and on these alone, I think he advocated the 

 deep sea fishery ; what I mean is, he asserted that fish found in deep water are acknow- 

 ledged to be superior in quality to those caught near the shores ; and that the deep sea 

 fishing would prove a valuable nursery for seamen : with the latter question I have no- 

 thing to do in this memoir ; the former opinion is also mine, but on grounds entirely 

 different from those advocated by Mr DRUMMOND. 



The reason why the food could not be discovered by preceding observers will be 

 readily understood by most of my readers ; it was next to an impossibility for any other 

 than a scientific person, who had examined the whole range of the animal kingdom, to 

 make out the inquiry ; for, first, we have seen that it requires a certain degree of 



anatomical knowledge to examine the stomach and intestines, and considerable dexterity 



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