164 MALACOP. ABDOM. HERRING FAMILY. 



that they seek the shores and shallower portions of 

 the ocean, no doubt on account of the higher tem- 

 perature, and probably increased supply of oxygen 

 found in such places, both of which seem to be 

 necessary, in the first place for maturing the ova, 

 and secondly, hatching them after they are excluded ; 

 they retire to deep water shortly after the operation 

 is concluded. It is extremely probable that then 

 food differs considerably while they are on our 

 coasts and employed as has just been stated, from 

 that on which they subsist while frequenting the 

 depths of the ocean. The food of many kinds of 

 fishes must be very different during the spawning 

 season from what it is at other times ; the migra- 

 tory Salmonidae may serve as an example. In their 

 pelagic state, if we may so express it, the food of 

 the herring, as with so many others of the small- 

 southed fine-toothed fishes, consists (according to 

 Dr. Knox) of minute entomostraca : when near the 

 shore they add to these the young of their own 

 species, the spawn and fry of various other kinds 

 of fishes, small medusae, and Crustacea. Dr. Fle- 

 ming says that the fry, or sill, enter the mouths of 

 rivers, and have even been caught with a trout-fly ; 

 and Sir William Jardine states that, " on the coasts 

 of the "West Highlands, Herrings for many years 

 past, have been taken with the rod, the hook dressed 

 with a white feather (generally from some of the 

 gulls). Near Oban, and upon the shores of Mull 

 and Jura, twelve dozen are sometimes taken by a 

 single boat during the evening." 



