344 THE WORLD OF THE SEA. 
popular, is giving way to observation which tends to prove that the 
fish inhabit the open sea, and approach the shore at the spawning 
season. As proof positive that the migration theory is incorrect, 
herrings may be found at some point or other round our coasts at 
all seasons of the year; but when they come in vast shoals, they 
are gravid with roe, this aceounts for the fact that the herrings we 
eat are usually full of eggs or milt, as the soft roe is called. 
As soon as the eggs are deposited, they again swim out to 
the open sea, and frequently, as their visit to the shore is but short, 
the shoal retires before the boats have time to assemble from the 
neighbouring villages. This proved so often the case in Norway, 
that constantly the inhabitants of a fiord, who almost depend on 
the herring-fishing for their living, were left in destitution till the 
next season. To remedy this, in 1857, the Norwegian govern- 
ment erected an electric telegraph along the coast, so that one 
village might communicate with the rest, when a herring-shoal is 
discovered in the offing. 
The people who live in the interior, leave their farms and wood- 
cutting, and migrate to the shore to gather in the harvest of the 
sea; they carry with them nets, which they have made in the 
winter evenings. When a shoal of herrings runs up one of their 
narrow fiords, they place a long net over the bar at its mouth, and. 
so entrap the whole. The fish are sold either to merchants in the 
neighbourhood, or taken in the boats to Bergen, where there 
are great storehouses for the salted and dried herrings. 
As the season advances, the shoals go southwards, where they 
find the population on the alert for their arrival; finally, having 
deposited their spawn, they leave the coast and make off into the 
deep sea, When not enclosed in the fiords, they are taken in the 
ordinary manner, that is, a net two or three hundred yards long, is 
let down in the midst of the shoal; it is supported on floats, a large 
skin float, “the dog,” being attached to its end. The meshes of the 
net are of such a size, that the fish as they thrust their heads 
against the perpendicular wali of net, find themselves caught by 
their gills, or fins, so that they cannot extricate themselves. The 
nets are allowed to remain all night, and in the morning the fishers 
haul them in. Sometimes from the number of fish entangled, it 
is necessary to use the capstan. They are packed in casks, which 
