fourth. The scales were therefore marked as those of the 1904 

 year-class marked herrings of Norway. The fish was a male at 

 stage 2, and was 29'4 cm. long. 



Maturity. — Table IV. The first sample consisted of recover- 

 ing spents and virgin fish. The catching of the herrings for bait 

 when line fishing made the time between capture and landing long, 

 and as no ice was used for preserving the catch, the condition of 

 the gonads presented difficulties in determining exactly the state 

 of development. It was thought better, therefore, to enter all 

 with small gonads of the shape and size of Hjort's stage 2 as two's, 

 than to try and discriminate between stages 7 — 2 and 2, which 

 could not have been done with any confidence. 



Virgin fish formed practically the whole of sample 2, only four 

 herrings being present at stage 2. 



As would be expected from the age composition of samples 3 

 to 10, there was for 1914 as in 1913 no evidence of any spawning 

 taking place in our local waters, which have already- been referred 

 to as a nursery for young herrings of from two to four winter rings. 

 Although investigations in connexion with the herrings of the 

 district have been carried on for a short time only, there is no doubt 

 from the evidence obtained from fishermen and the occasional 

 landings of haddocks gorged with herring spawn that our waters 

 have at times been a spawning ground for the herring. But it 

 does not follow that the spawning and the j^oung fish belong to 

 the same shoal, and it is more than probable that the nursery ground 

 for one shoal has at times been used as a spawning ground by 

 another shoal. 



Sample 11 contained more fish at an advanced stage of maturity 

 than were found in the Northumberland coast samples. 



The trawled herring samples were similar as regards maturity 

 to those of 1913, They contained a fair number of mature and 

 spent fish, and also a number which were too young to spawn 

 during 1914. 



