DESCRIPTION OF HERRING. 21 



sexual organs, the ovaria, and spermaries take up the 

 largest room. As soon as the eggs and milt are fully 

 matured, they pass from their envelopes through a 

 narrow tube toward an opening which is immediately 

 back of the anus. The intestinal canal starts from 

 the stomach, at whose back there are hollow tubes, 

 which, when food is plentiful, are filled with a fatty 

 juice. In front of the stomach there is a short and 

 wide cavity ; from the stomach a tube, the pneumatic 

 duct, passes to the swimming bladder, which shines 

 like silver, and has the shape of a spindle. On either 

 side of the swimming bladder are the kidneys, and 

 between these, and close below the spine, there is 

 a large blood vessel, in which a large portion of the 

 blood which has passed through the gills is conveyed 

 to the lower part of the body." 



The herring when it leaves the egg is about as thin 

 as a ribbon, and almost as transparent as the water 

 in which it swims. In Scotland the smallest fully 

 matured herring measure 215 millimeters, whilst 

 on the coast of Norway they measure 225, and are 

 supposed to reach their full size in their fourth year. 

 That the herring is exceedingly prolific may be 

 readily supposed from a consideration of the vast 

 quantities which, having escaped the many egg- 

 devourers, are yearly destroyed by their ever vigilant 

 enemies. The quantity of herring taken in the 

 thousands of miles of netting spread for them by all 

 the fishermen engaged in their capture is but small 

 in comparison with what is destroyed by birds and 

 fish. When herring take to the deep water, they 



