THE HERRING FAMILY 199 



to dash into the air, sending up a column of herrings at the 

 same time.* 



These fishes feed, like the whalebone whale and basking 

 shark, by straining the water through their long gill-rakers, 

 which form a dove-tailed screen capable of arresting the 

 copepoda. Some, like the shads, ascend rivers to breed, and 

 even the herring itself appears to suffer no inconvenience in 

 brackish water. The herring and shads deposit eggs that 

 hatch out on the bottom ; but whereas those of the herring 

 adhere in masses to stones and weeds, and even to living crabs, 

 the eggs of the shad develop separately on the river bed. 

 The pilchard, sprat, and anchovy, on the other hand, lay 

 eggs that float and develop close to the surface. 



Professor Cossar Ewartf mentions having artificially fer- 

 tilised and hatched herring spawn, which was taken adhering 

 to stones from the Ballantrae Bank. The spawning of the 

 pilchard, on the other hand, was first studied by Matthias 

 Dunn, who found the fish spawning in May twenty miles 

 from land, and pressed the eggs from one into a bucket of 

 sea water. Each egg, he found, floated separately at the top, 

 but soon sank, dying for want of fertilising. He also knew 

 that the pilchard spawned about Christmas time ; but whether 

 the species spawns on our coast twice during the year, or 

 whether there are not rather distinct summer and wmter 

 races, as in the herring, is one of the problems that the 

 scientific experts of the Marine Biological Association at 

 Plymouth will no doubt determine in course of time. It is, 

 of course, because spawning pilchards keep twenty or thirty 

 miles from land, or twice the distance fished over by the 

 drift-boats, that we do not get pilchards, like herring, with 

 roes for table purposes. 



* See The Migrations and Other Habits of the Herring on the Coasts 

 of Devon and Cormvall (reprint from Report of the Royal Cornwall 

 Polytechnic Society), p. 16. 



t See Nature, xxix., p. 538. 



