A SHORT RESUME 



OF THE 



RESEARCHES INTO THE EUROPEAN 

 RAGES OF HERRINGS 



AND THE 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. 



By H. Chaeles Williamson, M.A., D.Sc, F.R.S.E., 

 Marine Laboratory, Aberdeen. 



At the present time the races of herrings are about to be investigated 

 by the International Committee for the Exploration of the North Sea. 



It may therefore be of advantage to review the work done on 

 this subject by Heincke and Matthews. 



I propose to give in the form of extracts from their works, the 

 opinions of these investigators regarding the problem, the methods 

 by which they tested the theory, and the results. Heincke dealt 

 with the herrings of the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and Wliite Sea. 

 Matthews' work is confined to Scottish herrings. 



Professor Heincke * has divided the herrings of Europe into 

 several races. 



He defines a race as follows : — 



" A race clearly constitutes such shoals as deposit their eggs at 

 the same time of year on spawning-beds situated more or less near 

 to one another, and having bottom and water of a similar nature. 

 The shoals, after spawning, disappear, and return the following year 

 at the same time and in a similar ripe condition " (p. xi). 



Heincke calls " a number of individuals which live under similar 

 outer conditions, and which are in direct sexual intermixture and 

 thereby of blood relationship, a race (family, stock) " (p. xliv). 



" The races of herring differ from one another in very many 

 particulars, and generally in these characters in which the species 

 of the genus Clupea differ from one another " (p. xxii). 



" The differences between the races are small ; as a rule not so 

 large as we find in the different species of Clupea ; but they are 

 no less sharply and characteristically impressed. Each individual 



* Heinekc, F., " Naturgcschichtc dos Herings."' Ahhand. Dent. Seefischcrei- 

 Vereins. Bd. ii. Heft 1. Berlin. 1898. 



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