644 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



DuWs '■^Anteckningar om sillfisketi Bohusldn,''^ ^^ Handlingar rorande 

 sillJisJcet,''^ and in Ehstrom^s and Malmh treatises.^^ 



As has been mentioned before, tlie coast of BohUvSlan is at long inter- 

 vals also Aisited by large numbers of "genuine sea-herrings," whose 

 spa^Yniug-seasou seems to be towards the end of summer or the first part 

 of autumn, as far as can be judged from the reports on the herring-fish- 

 eries during the eighteenth century.*'^ Among these "sea-herrings" 

 there were found especially on the northern coast a small number of 

 herrings whose spawning seems to have occurred towards the end of win- 

 ter or the lieginning of spring,^^ but whose relationship could be ascertained 

 with a greater d3gree of certainty than even that of the great mass of 

 herrings. It is highly probable that the herrings in question which 

 spawn towards the end of winter and generally in the beginning of 

 spring belong permanently to our coast and to its race of coast-herrings, 

 and are in fact its largest, strongest, and, with regard to the sexual organs, 

 earliest developed representatives; it is likewise probable that it is 

 owing to the sea-herrings coming from the North Sea that so many more 

 herrings were caught in nets during the last fishery -period than later. 

 The masses of herrings coming from more distant parts of the ocean 

 drive those herrings which are nearer the land towards the coast, where 

 both are caught together. The same takes place, though to a less extent, 

 with the rich herring-fisheries which occasionally occur in the beginning 

 of the year, which also explains the prevalent opinion that in these fish- 

 eries herrings resembling the so-called "old" herrings are caught.^ 

 During the latter part of the last great fishiug-i^eriod no other fully 

 matured herrings were caught but these last-mentioned ones. 



Eegarding the spawning-time of the herring, it should here be men- 

 tioned that the opinion has been advanced that one and the same her- 

 ring could spawn more than once a year, and that therefore one and the 

 same race of herrings had two distinct spaAAming-seasons.^" l*fo con- 



^e'^Trangrams-Actcn," Stockholm, 17d4, pp. 76,77,78.-0. C. Cedeestrom, ''Fiskod- 

 I'mg och Sveriges fiskericr," Stockholm, 1857, p. 215. — KgJ. Vet. Akads. liandl., 1817, pp. 

 35, A^.—Randl. ror siUf., pp. 64, 66, 90, 117, 120, 126.— Nya handl. ror sillf., I, p. is, x.— 

 Oefvers. af Kgl. Vet. Akads. ForhandL, I, 1844, p. 120. C.N. Ekstrom, '' Praktisk af- 

 handJing om IdmpUgaste sdttet aft fiska sill, torsk, Idnga, makrile, hummer och ostron," 

 Stockholm, 1845, p. 8.— A. W. Malm, ^' Goteborga och Bohusldns Kgl. Hushallnings- 

 SdlUkaps handlingar," 1856, pp. 9-10; 1857, p. 21. 



-"See my " PreUminar heratielse, 1873-74," pp. 19-21, where all the conflicting opin- 

 ions regarding the sxiawning-time of the so-called " old herring " are for the first time 

 given in a collected form. 



2«NiLSSOX, " Randl. ror. sillf. ,^^ p. 5.5. — Skandiiiavisk Fauna, iv, p. 508. 



29 See my " Prelim inUr ierdttelse" for 1873-'74, pp. 29-32. 



30M. E. Bloch, " Oeconomische XaturgescMchte," i, p. 192. — B. G. E. de La Cepi^de, 

 " Histoire naturelle des 2>oi9sons," v, Paris, 1803, p. 434. — Handlingar rSrande sillfisket, p. 

 56. — R. Parnell, " Memoirs of the JVernerian Natural Ilistorij Society," \n, Ediubiirg, 

 1838, p. 319. — Evidence on the operation of the acts relating to trawling for herring on the 

 coasts of Scotland, Edinbnrg, 18G3, p. 30. — A. Russel, " The salmon," Edinburg, 1864, 

 p. 86, — See also, Kroyer, " Damnarks Fiske," iii, p. 170. — This whole question has al- 

 ready been discussed more than two centuries ago, as may be seen from Neucrantz, 

 "De harengo exercitatio medica," Lubecse, 1654, pp. 18, 19. 



