lOO The Field Naturalist's Quarterly May 



matter, and the Caspian has Httle more ; but few of our 

 shoals, so far as is known, migrate to the Baltic, and 

 assuredly none can find their way to the Caspian. 



These particular spring movements must be put down to 

 the dictates of the spawning instinct, for the majority of our 

 sea-fish spawn between March and June. Others, it is true, 

 choose the cold months for that important function, while a 

 few are, on not very reliable evidence, credited with deposit- 

 ing their eggs twice during the year, in early spring and 

 again in autumn. Whether these alleged double-spawners 

 will not eventually be shown to consist of different races 

 of the same fish, as in the case of spring and autumn 

 herring, there is considerable doubt. 



If we agree to regard this spring inshoring of the fish, 

 particularly the mackerel, herring, and pilchard, as a pre- 

 paration for the spawning, we at once eliminate the influence 

 of food ; for, as a general rule, spawning fishes do not feed 

 vigorously. One need not necessarily go quite the length of 

 the gentlemen who declare that the salmon fasts absolutely 

 in fresh water until it has spawned ; but, on the whole, there 

 is ample reason to believe that spawning fish eat very little. 

 Those who have done much sea-fishing may, with a single 

 exception, rack their brains in vain to recall an instance of 

 their having, on any one occasion, caught many fish on the 

 hook and found them full of roe. Here and there, of course, 

 this may happen, and the writer has at one time or another 

 caught almost every kind of sea-fish that ever fell to his rod 

 with well-developed roe or milt as the case might be. The 

 exception alluded to above, which is here put forward with 

 some diffidence, is that of certain flat fish, notably the plaice 

 and dab. Both of these he has caught on hand-lines in 

 moderately deep water, and full of spawn almost ready for 

 shedding, so frequently that it seems impossible not to view 

 this singular sub-order (Heteroso7}iata) as an exception in this 

 respect, as it is in so many others. 



After the object of these spring wanderings has been de- 

 cided — it has not, as a matter of fact, been decided at all, but 

 opinion is very strongly in favour of viewing it as a spawning 

 movement — the next interesting aspect of these travels is 

 their direction. 



