202 SALT-WATER FISHES 



are distinct kinds in the White Sea which are netted through 

 the ice. Even on our coasts we have the large and small 

 herrings of the Lewes, the large race of the Ballantrag spawn- 

 ing-grounds, and the small, but oily, herring of Stornaway. 



As regards the numbers of the sexes, the males are said to 

 be slightly in excess ; this, if correct, is quite unusual in the 

 animal world. They are also regarded by some as slightly 

 longer, but this appears doubtful. The fact of the fishmonger 

 supplying soft roes almost throughout the year does not point 

 to an indiscriminate spawning-season, but merely to different 

 races spawning in different months. The winter herrings 

 frequent estuaries, while those that spawn in summer keep 

 farther away from land. 



The aforementioned fact of the herring laying heavy eggs 

 that sink to the bottom of the sea has been of great interest in 

 its bearing on the proposals for restricting the operations 

 of trawlers, and the different phases through which public 

 opinion has passed on the subject are instructive. Long ago, 

 before the scientific world knew of the buoyant nature of most 

 marine fish-spawn, it was known (1803) that the eggs of the 

 herring are demersal, and it was thought that other eggs might 

 be likewise and would certainly be disturbed, if not destroyed, 

 by the sweeping operation of the trawl-net. Then came the 

 discovery that only the herring, of all our important food-fishes, 

 deposits demersal spawn, and it was said that the trawlers could 

 damage that only and no other useful spawn. Then, again, 

 some one discovered, or fancied that he discovered, that the 

 herrings spawn only on ground too rough for the trawlers to 

 work on, so the trawler was wholly acquitted as unanimously 

 as earlier he had been condemned. Once again, however, 

 public opinion has veered round, for Cunningham has shown 

 beyond a doubt that the trawlers from both Granton and 

 Grimsby were in the habit of purposely fishing these grounds 

 in order to catch the haddocks that assemble there to gorge on 

 the herring eggs. 



