BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. . 221 



hundred barrels have been seemed. Often after the boat was loaded 

 the fishermen had to call on their neighbors to come and empty the re- 

 mainder of their nets 80 as not to lose them and the herring. But if 

 the fish are spawning and weakly, so that they cannot raise the nets, then 

 tliey sink to the bottom, and both nets and fish are lost. The result of 

 this is, theherring remain in the nets until all the meat is eaten off their 

 bones. These lying there all winter frighten the herring next season 

 from coming to spawn. The bones in the nets appear like clouds of 

 phosphorus. This causes the herring to leave the locality for years, as 

 has been found to be the ease at many places formerly frequented by 

 herring shoals for spawning, and afterward deserted for many years at 

 a time. 



The fry of the winter herring, after feeding from April, leave the 

 brackish water at Culross and Boness and go down the Firth of Forth. 

 When captured in October they are 3 to 4 inches long, with a tough 

 belly, and are called sprats or garvies. In November they are found at 

 Queensferry, and are continually getting larger. If there is very rough 

 weather they get mixed with the summer fry seeking to get up to Cul- 

 ross for the winter, and both are caught in the same net. Often, in 

 December, they are found between Queensferry and Inchkeith. Then 

 they are larger, and some caught measure 6 to 8 inches. In January 

 they go down the Firth, and are found all the way down to the Island 

 of May, then being immature herring. They meet their parents coming 

 in from the sea, where they have been since March after spawning. 



My fishermen, while fishing, have traced both the summer and winter 

 herring, after spawning, 40 miles to sea, and found both kinds returning 

 when fishing for them for bait for their large hooks. We have also 

 traced and followed the fry from where they were spawned up the north 

 shore of our Firth, all through the various bays, and up to Boness and 

 Culross, and observed their rapid growth every month as they passed 

 through our salmon nets and otherwise. 



Denham Geeen, Trinity, 



Edinburgh, March 18, 1885. 



55.-ON THE MIGKATIO> OF BIRDS I1Y THE SPRING AND AUTUMN 



OF 1SS4. 



By J. A. MAR VIE -BROWN, F. R. S., F. Z. S. 



Regarding the unusually extensive migration of gulls to our coasts in 

 1884- J 85, several suggestions as to the influencing causes are readily at 

 hand, but the following appear to have the greatest weight and impor- 

 tance : 



As we are informed in " Nature" of February 12, 1885, recent Nor- 

 wegian explorations in the Spitzbergen seas show that the year 1884 

 was a very remarkable ice year. " The west side of Spitzbergen was 



