646 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



where tliey are going to spawn. Occasionally, however, the herrings 

 arrive at the spawning-places some time before spawning commences ; 

 during a portion of the great fishing-periods, this seems to have been 

 the rule, but generally this is not the case, although it happens 

 that at the beginning of the fisheries herrings are caught which are 

 far from being ready to spawn. The various individuals composing a 

 school of herrings do not all get ready for spawning at one and the 

 same time, so that the spaAvning-season of one school generally extends 

 over nearly a quarter of a year ; the number of spawning fish is small 

 at the beginning and at the end, and greatest about the middle of the 

 spawning-season. It is therefore an old exi^erience, gained during the 

 great herring-fisheries in the western portion of the North Sea, that in 

 the beginning the fishermen catch more fat herrings, fewer spawning 

 herrings, and scarcely any herrings which have done spawing ; that the 

 number of fat herrings decreases in proportion as the spawning herrings 

 become more frequent, and that towards the end of the fisheries nearly 

 exclusively such herrings are caught which have done spawning, 

 together with a few spawning herrings, but no fat herrings at all. This 

 last-mentioned kind seems to give way before the spawning herring — 

 does therefore not go along to the spawning-place, and is not found there 

 whilst spawning is going on. 



The herring generally takes no food during spawning and imme- 

 diately previous to it, and as the sexual organs develop at the expense 

 of fat, the fish are very lean after spawning. During the spawning- 

 season we therefore find, at least with the sea-herring, only very inconsid- 

 erable and entirely indeterminable traces of food in its stomach or entrails. 

 This is not so much the case with the coast- herring, which finds sufficient 

 food even near the spawning places, and which seems to continue to take 

 food farther into the spawning-season. 



The approach of the herrings to the spawning-places may certainly be 

 delayed or interrujited by unfavorable weather, but when spawning has 

 once commenced the herring blindly rushes forward towards its object 

 without being deterred or hindered by anything ; for instance, the attacks 

 of fish of prey, &c. 



It has also been observed that when the herrings begin to approach 

 the spawning-places the overwhelming majority are female fish, while 

 the very reverse is the case towards the end of their visit to the coast ; 

 and a predominance of male fish is said to be a sure sign that the fish- 

 eries are approaching their end.^* A short time before the beginning of 

 the spawning-season smaU quantities of fish composed exclusively of 

 male fish are caught. 



The herrings generally approach the spawning-place at the beginning 

 of night and leave it early in the morning immediately after having 

 spawned ; but during the great fisheries it also happens that the her- 



s^BOECK, " Om Silden og Sildejiskerierne," p. 26; Tidsskrift for Fisheri, VII, p. 24. 



