104 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



because their gill rakers are not fine enough to retain them. Although herring 

 normally are not fish eaters, small launce, silversides, and the young of their own 

 species have been found in them at Woods Hole. 



Unfortunately the particular species of copepods on which Gulf of Maine 

 and Woods Hole herring gorge have not been identified, but we might guess that 

 Calanus, with Pseudocalanus, Acartia, and Centropages predominate, while at 

 its times of abundance Temora no doubt looms large in the diet of the herring 

 here as it does in the Irish Sea, and Euchseta offers a rich food supply when the 

 schools seek the deep waters of the basin where these mammoth copepods abound. 



Enemies. — The herring is the best of all bait in the Gulf. Naturally, then, 

 it is preyed upon by all kinds of predaceous fish, especially by cod, pollock, haddock, 

 silver hake, mackerel, salmon, dogfish and other sharks. Silver hake in particular 

 often drive schools of herring right up on our beaches, where pursued and pursuers 

 alike strand on the shoaling bottom. The finback whales also devour them in great 

 quantities, and the common squid (Ommastrephes) destroys multitudes of the 

 young sardines. 



Destruction by natural causes. — The herring is a very "tender" fish, prover- 

 bially prone to wholesale destruction by stranding on beaches during storms and 

 by pollution of the water. Many instances of this kind have been reported. 

 Allen, 4 for example, saw young herring in windrows for miles on the strand at Rye 

 Beach in August, 1911. A slaughter of herring, more instructive because the exact 

 course of events was followed, occurred at Cohasset, on the south shore of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay, in October, 1920. On the 5th of that month a large school of Sper- 

 ling, 4 to 5 inches hi length, ran up the harbor (which is nearly landlocked), prob- 

 ably driven in by sdver hake (at least so local fishermen said), were trapped there 

 by the falling tide, and stranded on the mud. So numerous were they that the 

 flats were entirely covered with them and it was estimated that 20,000 barrels of 

 fish perished. During the next few days the fish, alternately covered and uncov- 

 ered by the tide, decayed and in spite of tidal circulation so fouled the water that 

 lobsters died in the floating cars. On the 10th there was a second but smaller run 

 of herring, and on the 15th a run as large as the first occurred, the newcomers 

 dying soon after they entered the harbor. Altogether, it was estimated that 

 50,000 barrels of fish perished, of which over 90 per cent were sperling, 5 to 10 per 

 cent were large adults, and a few were small mackerel and silver hake, besides 

 large numbers of smelt. By the last half of October, when I saw them, the flats 

 were silvery with herring scales at low tide, and the residents about the harbor 

 found the stench almost unbearable. During the winter months the fish entirely 

 decomposed and the water purified itself. In north European waters vast quanti- 

 ties of herring spawn are likewise cast up on the beaches every year to perish. 



Annual fluctuation in the supply of herring. — Many times during the past 75 

 years the complaint has been made that the herring of the Gulf of Maine are 

 diminishing in number, but Moore 898), who sifted many sources of information, 

 concluded (we believe rightly) that t ere had been no general decrease in the abundance 



• Memoirs, Boston Society of Natural History, vol. 8, No. 2, 1916, p. 202. 



