506 REPOKT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



several of our older authors, e. g., Bondelet, although Albertus inagnus 

 has already poiuted out the impossibility of this statemeut. 



Iu the Skagerak, where I have made mauy observations, the favorite 

 food of the herring consists of small copepods, which are often found in 

 enormous quantities. During the warm season these little animals are 

 very numerous, and herrings during this time are much less valuable. 

 The same is the case in Norway, where three kinds of herring food are 

 known, viz, the " red food," which according to H. Strom, Eathke and 

 others consists of small crustaceans; the "yellow food," which accord- 

 ing to Axel Boeck consists of annelida larvae ; and the " black food," 

 which, according to Eathke, consists of larvae of mollusks. In olden times 

 laws were given in Scotland and other parts where herring fisheries are 

 carried on to counteract the influence of this food on the herring. In 

 Norway herrings which have gorged themselves with such food are called 

 u aatecl, v and in Scotland u guipoke. v 



Professor Mobius has published some data regarding the quantity of 

 food which a herring can devour. These data are based on exact obser- 

 vations. Thus, there were found no less than 60,000 tails of copepods 

 in the stomach of a single herring which had been caught in the Bay of 

 Kiel. 



As regards the food of the young herring but little can be said, as we 

 do not as yet possess a sufficient number of observations from different 

 localities. Prof. C. J. Sundevall says that on the Stockholm coast the 

 young herring when measuring little above an inch feed on small cope- 

 pods; and Prof. G. Lindstrom states that even in a smaller herring 

 caught on the same coast he has found larvae of a tergites. Axel Boeck 

 maintains that the young herring immediately after it has lost the um- 

 bilical bag begins to snap after small crustaceans. Quite recently Dr. 

 H. A. Meyer has communicated the result of his extensive observations, 

 according to which the food of young herrings in the Bay of Kiel con- 

 sists of larvse of Bissoa, Ulva, Lacuna, Tellina, Cardium, &c, and occa- 

 sionally of larva3 of Nauplius, whilst when they grow somewhat larger 

 they will eagerly devour full-grown copepods. 4 



The herring only in exceptional cases bites a baited hook and hue, but 

 may be caught with floating hooks. Whenever we find it mentioned 

 that herrings were caught with hooks, this doubtless refers to floating 

 hooks. 



The herring often consumes small and generally very oily aquatic 

 animals in such enormous quantities that its whole inside is filled with 

 a putrefying stinking mass of animal matter, so that it is not fit to be- 

 come an article of human food. And this condition of the herring has 

 by some authors been considered as a sickness; as such even that cer- 

 tain faintness has been explained which sometimes overcomes the her- 

 ring after spawning to such a degree that it is helplessly tossed about 



*Nordisk Tidsskrift for Fiskeri, V.,p. 154, 200. 



