970 



SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 



the island-belt, he may expect a successful fishing-season. 

 But if the wind is north-east at the beginning of the 

 spring, the fishery is always a failure. These migrations 

 extend, however, over no great distance, being restricted 

 to limits of some few leagues. The islander has a rough 

 knowledge of the coast-line to a distance of at least 

 some leagues from his home, and consequently can tell 

 against which promontories or into which inlets the 

 Str5mming is driven by the wind prevailing for the time. 

 So the islanders of Morko say, "If this wind holds, they 

 will have Herring in the islands of Oster Gothland;" 

 "With this wind the Herring will come to the island- 

 belt of .Stockholm;" etc. The places most affected l)y the 

 Stromniing are shallows with a level Ijottom in the large 

 fjords, or the shores that abut on deep ^\'ater, but do not 

 fall sheer into the depths, having a fairly level bottom 

 between the outer edge and the land. Such shores are 

 generally to be found in these islands off ])romoiitories. 

 They are all the better if there is a current. The bottom 

 should be sandy or stony, and overgrown, at least in 

 patches, with weeds. About midsummer, at tlie middle 

 or end of June, the spawning is over, and the Strom- 

 ming retires to deeper water. Towards autumn, in 

 August, it again ascends, but never visits at this season 

 the places Avhere it has passed the spi'ing or spawned, 

 repairing instead to much deeper spots. In December 

 or even earlier the greater number witlidraw to their 

 winter-quarters, which they choose in some deeper part 

 of the sea. These places are not tlie same year after 

 year, for, when the StrOmniing is taken in winter with 

 the ice-seine, it is found standing now at one spot, now 

 at another; but it keeps, generally speaking, to the same 

 neighbourhood. The islanders of MOrko have certain 

 strommingsvarj), i. e. certain slieets of water whei-e 

 StrOmming may be taken with tlie ice-seine, liut only 

 the tract is known, not the exact spot." 



The gregariousness of the Herring is bound up with 

 its timidity. That it is easily alarmed by noise, we 

 have already remarked, and Eksthoji adduces evidence 

 to prove that the passing of steamers may frighten it 

 away from the navigable channels of the island-belt, and 

 also that the mei'e setting of gill-nets is sometimes 

 enough to disturb its spawning and drive it a^vay from 

 a fishing-station of ascertained value. In Bohu.sMn too 

 the firing of guns is now prohibited during the fishing- 

 season. The Herring is not tenacious of life. The ra- 

 pidity of its death is notorious, and has given rise in 

 " Cf also Cuv., Val., 1. c, p. 03. 



many places to the ])roverbial expi-ession, "as dead as 

 a Herring^ But, according to Ekstrom", "the infor- 

 mation we possess on this head is exaggerated. It is 

 generally believed that the fish dies the very moment 

 it is lifted above the surface of the water. I have per- 

 sonally made numbers of ex{)eriments to test this state- 

 ment, and have found that the time varies with the 

 temperature of the atmosphere. In s])i'ing, at tlie end 

 of April, when the air is still cool and usually cold, 

 the Stromming lives 18 — 20 minutes after it has been 

 taken out of the water. If caught late in the evening or 

 at night, it sustains life for fully half an hour. But it 

 must be handled carefullj' and not exyiosed to any ex- 

 ternal violence. As the summer approaches, at the 

 middle of May for example, it never lives more than 

 6 — 10 minutes, and at midsummer, when the air is 

 quite warm, tiie duration of its life out of the water 

 seldom exceeds 4 minutes. It should be remarked, how- 

 ever, that the individuals on which I made the above 

 experiments had not been entangled in the meshes of a 

 net, but were taken, quite uninjured, in a vessel out of 

 the water and deposited on the beach or in the boat. 

 If tiie StrOmming has been caught in the seine, it dies 

 almost at the moment it leaves the water, and those taken 

 with gill-nets are dead before they are drawn up." 



In s]>ite of its fecl)le dentition the Herring ranks 

 among the predatory fishes, though its victims are 

 usually of small size. In its earliest youth it lives on the 

 most minute marine animals. At a length of 11 mm. 

 a Herring larva had begun to feed on the larva^ of 

 worms (LiXDSTiio.M), and a young Herring 17 mm. long 

 had its intestine "full of food, amongst which small 

 species of Cyrlopiche might easily be recognised" (SuN- 

 devall). In its later youth and during the rest of its 

 life the Herring, no doubt, lives jjrincipally on Eiitom- 

 ostraca, Schizopods, and Ptcropods. Certain parts of 

 the North Atlantic teem with these animals, which are 

 so plentiful as to afford a sufficiency of food to the very 

 largest whales. Tiie Norwegian fishermen class the 

 Herring's ordinary food {Aaten) under three heads, which 

 they call JRndaat, Gidaat, and Svartaat or Krutaat. The 

 first consists ciiiefly of Copepods, either extremely small 

 or (c. g. Calanus finmarcMcus) as much as 8 mm. long. 

 "It seems incredible," writes Boeck, "that creatures so 

 small can \Aay so important a part in the economy of 

 a Avhole country; but the Mackerel and tlie Autumn 

 Herring owe tiicir fatness almost entirely to these aiii- 



