MIGRATION AND DESTRUCTION OF HERRING. 33 



been left in the sea, there must have been off the 

 Norwegian coasts 1,350,000,000 cod-fish, and it is 

 in evidence that as soon as the herring makes its 

 appearance off the coast, cod-fish will leave off feed- 

 ing upon anything else, and at once greedily pursue 

 the glittering silver herring ; in fact, so fond of herring 

 are cod-fish, that when fishermen bait their hooks 

 with old salt herring in place of fresh, when this is 

 not at hand, the cod will snap at the salt rather than 

 have none at all; and should the herring make off 

 from the coast, the cod follow them, for which reason 

 cod-fishing seasons are sometimes prematurely closed, 

 and the fishing spoilt. The cod greedily fills himself 

 with herring ; and as he quickly loses his lean con- 

 dition and gets fat on it, it will be well within the 

 mark to allow every cod 6 herrings per day. Accord- 

 ing to evidence, as before stated, collected by Frank 

 Buckland, that quantity has been found undigested 

 in its stomach when caught ; and allowing him to 

 feed at this rate for only 30 days in the year, we get 

 the enormous total of 243,000,000,000 herrings de- 

 stroyed by only one of its enemies in the short 

 space of one month along this line of coast. This 

 quantity if put into railway trucks, such as are used 

 to carry herrings from Yarmouth to the interior 

 markets in England, would require 4,602,272 trucks, 

 or over 153,000 trains of 30 trucks to the train. 

 With engines, tenders, and brakes this reaches the 

 aggregate length of 16,300 miles, or united end to 

 end would stretch considerably over half-way round 

 the world. This alone, without counting the herring 



c 



