40 DEEP-SEA FISHING. 



There is no question that vast numbers of herrings 

 spawn near the coast, and in a very few cases the 

 locahty is known, but generally speaking we cannot 

 say where it may or may not be ; all we know is, 

 that some of these fish are more or less near the land 

 when they are ripe for spawning, and very probably in 

 shallower water than they would be in 30 or 40 miles 

 farther out. A glance at the charts, however, will be 

 sufficient to show that the latter would not necessarily 

 be the case in all places where herrings periodically 

 appear. But if spawning be the sole, or even chief, 

 object which brings the full herrings near the land, 

 what is it leads those which have no appearance of the 

 roe becoming developed to take precisely the same direc- 

 tion on several parts of the same coast ? The Lowestoft 

 boats begin the spring herring fishery 50 or 60 miles 

 off the land, and carry it on with only a slight inter- 

 misfc-ion in May until the close of the midsummer fishery 

 in the middle of July. Now let us see what is the con- 

 dition of these spring and summer fish. "When they 

 are first met with, at the farthest distance from the 

 land, they are so young and small that nets with meshes 

 below the ordinary herring size are required in order 

 to catch them. Complaints, as is well known, are con- 

 stantly being made of the destruction of these at first 

 almost worthless fish ; but as they come nearer the land 

 they increase in size and quality, until at the later part 

 of the fishery, when they are only a few miles from the 

 shore, they are good fat fish, but still with ver}^ little 

 appearance of roe in them. Then they disappear, and 

 the fishing ceases till the autumn, when the spawning 

 fish are looked after. It appears to us very unlikely 

 that these young spring fish should have been produced 

 from spawn deposited near the land by the autumn 



