100 TRANSACTIONS OF THE RoyAaL CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [VOL. XI 
It has been stated repeatedly by investigators who have worked on 
the North Sea herring that these come back to the identical place to 
spawn year after year. If one is to judge from the distribution of spawn- 
ing areas in the spring of 1913 and 1914 that cannot be said of the Pacific 
species, as the distribution was quite different in the two years. In 
1913 spawn was deposited thickly in Nanoose Bay well up at the head 
of the Bay and from there along the shore east all the way to Horswell 
Rock as well as everywhere in Departure Bay, while in 1914, there was 
none deposited at the head of Nanoose Bay, but there was some at the 
entrance to the Bay and for three or four miles to the eastward, but none 
the remainder of the way to Horswell Rock and none in Departure Bay. 
Apparently there is not the same trouble here in locating herring 
spawn as there is in the North Sea. In fact there is no trouble at all. 
The spring tide rise is up to 16 feet or more. At or near high tide a 
school of herring passes into a Bay or into shallow water along the 
shore and there the females move in and out among the seaweed or eel 
grass, depositing the eggs as they rub against these solid objects. There 
the eggs adhere not only to the seaweed but to some extent to one another. 
In the meantime the males extrude the milt in such abundance that 
when it mixes with the water, the water becomes almost perfectly 
opaque, of a light greenish-white color. Before the tide goes down the 
eggs are practically all fertilised and at low tide—sometimes even at 
half-tide—are exposed in such large quantities that no one going near 
could fail to see them. The ripple caused by the fish in the water,— 
although this may be seen at any tinie when a school of herring is passing 
—the peculiar opacity of the water, the flocks of gulls that follow the 
progress of the school, the masses of eggs exposed later, inconceivably 
numerous, with hordes of ducks doing their best to reduce the number, 
each and all give unmistakeable evidence as to the locality where spawn- 
ing takes place. 
Although the eggs are out of the water for four or five hours at a 
stretch they do not seem to suffer. The bladder wrack or eel grass 
might retain a certain amount of moisture, but the eggs are often found 
attached to the bare rock, and here the moisture cannot be retained. 
To see the thoroughness with which the milt is mixed with the water 
one wonders if it could be possible if any eggs could escape contact 
with some of it, but later, when one sees the spawn exposed, so many 
eggs in so small a space and so much space occupied, one can scarcely 
realise, even after seeing the method of distributing the milt, that pro- 
vision could be sufficiently thorough to ensure the fertilization of every 
egg. The egg is so transparent that the dark eyes of the embryo, shortly 
before hatching, are very conspicuous, hence a glance is all that is neces- 
