100 HERRING. 



birds, and the Salmon in the sea, Herrings were led instinctively 

 to return from the deep water to the place of their birth, 

 much of the obscurity which (as we have seen) hangs over 

 their motions would be removed. 



It has been confidently believed that the spawn is shed 

 near the surface, and not far from land, although where the 

 water is deep, close to the rocks, there is reason to thinly 

 that it may take place at the distance of a few miles; but it 

 is Mr. Mitchell's opinion, supported by his own observation 

 and that of a Russian observer, that this function takes place 

 close to the bottom on hard or rocky ground. To the foregoing 

 account, therefore, we add: — "We have fully ascertained that 

 the shoals generally fix in one locality for depositation, and 

 that immediately after spawning the Herrings proceed to sea. 

 The proper incubation is as follows: — The female remains 

 quiescent at the bottom. The whole of the roe is at once 

 deposited. The milt, thoroughly ripened in the male, has 

 become changed from a solid mass to a liquid of the colour 

 and consistency of cream: the roe, although placed in the 

 briny flood, becomes a firm united mass, somewhat larger than, 

 but similar in shape to the roe in a full Herring. This 

 lifeless mass, or egg-bed, has the power of adhesion: it grasps 

 the stones, the rocks, the sea-weed, etc., so firmly that we have 

 found it difficult to remove or separate it until the mass was 

 dried or dead. In fourteen days, or perhaps three weeks, the 

 young are seen in great abundance near the shore, of a very 

 small size; in six or seven weeks more they are observed to be 

 about three inches in length, and it is likely that they attain 

 to full size and maturity in about eighteen months." In the 

 early stage of growth they keep together, and so close to the 

 shore that many of them are left in pools by the ebbing of 

 the tide, — a circumstance we have not noticed as hapjiening 

 to the Pilchard; their movements, also, are as if actuated by 

 a common impulse. But all the circumstances we have men- 

 tioned have a tendency to lessen their numbers, so that we 

 may well wonder how it is that the race itself is not 

 extinguished. 



Lacepede says that in North America the spawn of the 

 Herring have been carried by the inhabitants and deposited 

 at the mouth of a river which had never been frequented by 



