the Salmon, Herring, and Vendace. 517 



December, and specimens can be placed before the members of the Society, at any time, 

 in a soft state. 



One of the results of these inquiries I imagine to give an importance to the discove- 

 ries of Mr Robert Brown, which they did not seem previously entitled to ; and likewise 

 I admit freely, an importance to microscopic research against which I was myself a few 

 years ago very unjustly and perhaps unfortunately prejudiced. 



In all the herring I have examined in the course of this inquiry, I have found male 

 and female, the number greatly preponderating in favour of the female, in as much as 

 six to one. The largest herring I have met with measured eleven inches ; the largest 

 male herring I have met with measured nine and a half inches. The same is the case 

 with the vendace of Lochmaben. The proportion in favour of females is so great, that 

 I was the first to shew the male, and I have not found any male to exceed 7 inches, 

 whereas the female are often S or 9 inches long. The organs of generation were, in 

 the greater number large; in a few, however, they seemed at the minimum. In these, 

 ('. e. with the organ of generation not increased), the mesentery was uniformly loaded 

 with fat ; the stomach always contained the proper food; and the fish altogether in such 

 a state as seemed to me to require little or no cleaning before being used as food. The 

 spleen was generally remarkably large and fleshy. This organ seems even to be of dif- 

 ferent forms in different specimens of the herring. 



Dutch Herrings and Mode of Cure. The Dutch take and cure bad herrings as well as 

 good ones. This they must of necessity do when the busses approach very near to the 

 spawning ground, which, however, is seldom the case. Their selection, however, is very 

 carefully made, or at least it used to be so. Holland has changed in many respects since 

 the prosperous days of " The States." 



It is very questionable if, npon the eastern shores of Scotland, any considerable take 

 of perfectly clean and prime conditioned herrings, and which are neither full nor shotten, 

 ever takes place. This kind of fishing seems to me to bear the same relation to the 

 deep-sea fisheries of the Dutch, which the salmon-fishing of Peebles bears to the stake- 

 net fisheries of the Bay of Berwick. It is easy for persons in trade, as has been 

 done, to assert that salmon and herrings are equally good wherever they are taken, for 

 with such persons the article they have to dispose of is always the best; and, having an 

 interest in asserting it, they believe in the assertion, and thus believing they will swear 

 to it ; but nothing of all this has any thing to do with scientific truths. 



Trade. One great and manifest error in the conducting the British Herring Fisheries 

 has been the endeavouring to make that appear to be what, in point of fact, it was not. 

 Thus the writer of the article Fisheries, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, says, " In the 

 Report of the Downs Society of Fishermen, it is stated, that herrings had been taken 

 within the Cinque Ports, of a quality so nearly resembling the deep sea fish that they 

 were cured and sold as the best Dutch herrings." P. 265. The effects of this kind of 

 conduct on British trade and British manufacture, has been shewn by Sir CHARLES 

 BABBAGE to be most deplorable. " We brought with us from England nearly 100,000 

 needles of various sizes, and amongst them was a great quantity of ' Whitechapel 



3 u2 



