FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 71, NO. 1 



Table 3. — Hematocrits of herring samples and sexes within each sample, 25 February- 



30 October 1969. 



1 Boothbay Harbor herring held 6 months before being bled. 



2 Herring from the wild 8 July sample held 2 weeks before being 



bled. 



until the final bleeding on 30 October. Seawater 

 temperatures from 30 July to 22 August were 

 higher than normal with the captive herring ex- 

 posed to temperatures of up to 20.5°C (68.9°F). 

 The physiology of the short-term captives was 

 undoubtedly affected as evidenced by the many 

 disintegrated red cells and abnormal cell types 

 seen in the blood of herring not containing in- 

 clusion bodies. The marked variation in cell 

 sizes and shapes, teardrop cells and bizarre 

 forms are rarely seen in normal herring blood. 



In 1965 I noted a close correlation between 

 hematocrit values in herring and hemoglobin 

 concentrations measured by the cyanmethemo- 

 globin method. I have found no references on 

 hematocrit values of the Atlantic herring, so I 

 include the relations I found between hematocrit 

 values and hemoglobin concentrations here. The 

 herring sampled in 1965 were long-term cap- 

 tive herring 12.7-25.4 cm in length. Hemato- 

 crits were taken as described in the present 

 study. Blood for hemoglobin measurements was 

 obtained from the heart and placed in a small 

 test tube to which a drop of liquid heparin had 

 been added. Hemoglobins were measured as 



grams per 100 ml. Regression analysis gave a 

 correlation coefficient of 0.9333. The regression 

 line with the confidence limits of Y at the 0.05 

 level are shown in Figure 8. 



DISCUSSION 



Boyar (1962) reported that mature red cells 

 constitute 97-100% of all blood cells in herring 

 blood, and the immature red cells plus white 

 cells made up less than 3% of the total cells in 

 the herring he examined. However, I found an 

 average of 20% immature erythrocytes in the 

 blood of normal wild herring and 14% immature 

 erythrocytes in the blood of normal captive 

 herring. 



The occurrence of cytoplasmic inclusions had 

 no apparent relationship to sex, length, weight, 

 or hematocrits, nor did herring with inclusions 

 show, on cursory examination, more than the 

 usual parasites observed in samples without in- 

 clusions. The occurrence of inclusions is asso- 

 ciated with other hematological abnormalities in 

 the peripheral blood including upward to 90% 

 immature red cells or a low of 1 to 5% immature 



132 



