184 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



it by making- a noise. Fishing with stationary nets is of course some- 

 what different, because such nets are always set in such a manner that 

 the herrings must strike them in moving from one place to the other. 



When a school of herrings during their migration strike a net they are 

 not thereby hindered in their progress, but they go either above or below 

 it, and after having passed it again pursue their course at their usual 

 depth. This makes it possible by placing several nets in a row to catch 

 the whole school. It is generally thought, however, that by placing the 

 nets too close together the herrings are hindered from entering the 

 fiords. 



During the spawuing-scason the herrings arc not afraid of the net, 

 even in broad daylight, but rush blindly towards it, seemingly with the 

 intention of squeezing themselves into its meshes, and this in such a fu- 

 rious stylo that they frequently push down the net entirely. Fishing 

 by day-time with stationary nets or with drag-nets held by anchors may 

 generally be carried on only during the spaw^ning-season or when the 

 water is very turbid. This proves that the herrings are much less afraid 

 of their enemies when animated by the propagating desire than when 

 merely seeking their food. Kroyer says very truly with regard to those 

 annual visits which the herrhigs pay to the coast for the purpose of 

 spawning : " If we consider how little the hen-ings are disturbed in their 

 course, and how calmly they allow^ themselves to be caught or devoured 

 by other fish, w^e must become convinced that fear does not put them to 

 flight and that noise does not scare them, but that their instinct guides 

 them on the way they must foUow." 



Farther on I shall have occasion to speak of the influence which the 

 enemies of the herrings exercise on their periodical visits [^5^ 5G, 60.) 



33. The diflerent outward conditions of nature must, however, as re- 

 gards their influence on the herrings, be considered not only separately, 

 but combined and connectedly. But as different effects spring from the 

 same cause, owing to difference of the seasons, different local circum- 

 stances or different objects of the herrings' visits to the coast, and as 

 fishing with different apparatus produces verj^ different results, it will be 

 necessary, in comjiaring observations from different places and times 

 and from different kinds of fisheries, first to combine those that are more 

 closely connected, so as to obtain an exact knowledge of every kind of 

 fishery during every season of the year, before one can draw general 

 conclusions. Both in collecting and arranging the observations too 

 little regard has in general been paid to the above-mentioned points, 

 or to the mutual relations of the various meteorological, hydrological, 

 orogra])hical, and geognostical data and their relation to biological 

 facts. This has also made it very difficult for me to giv^e a complete 

 review of the observations and opinions of myself and others. 



Thus, for exami)le, the physical investigations of the herring-fisheries 

 made by the Dutch and Scotch Meteorological Societies have been made 

 with too exclusively a practical object, and thus only furnished informa- 



