IGNORANCE OF HABITS, ETC., OF HERRING. 15 



shows conclusively that, instead of a single tribe, 

 there are several distinct varieties of herring, each 

 having its own particular haunt. Thus, the Shetland 

 can be distinguished from the Ballantrae, the East 

 Coast from the West Coast, and the Yarmouth from 

 the North Sea fish ; while, on the Norwegian coasts, 

 varieties are found which differ from the Scotch and 

 the Dutch, and these again from herring taken on 

 the French coast. Thus the many varieties of her- 

 ring found on the coasts washed by the North Sea 

 prove that they do not come from one common tribe, 

 from the polar regions or elsewhere, as formerly sup- 

 posed ; the probability being that each variety has 

 its own particular home in the deeper water outside 

 that coast which it frequents during the spawning 

 season. It has been noted by Cuvier and Valen- 

 ciennes, "that on the northern coasts of France, and 

 not far apart, are two tribes of herrings, each of 

 which has its separate home in certain basins of the 

 sea, and that these tribes never intermingle." 



In his Report on the Herring Fisheries of Scotland, 

 Frank Buckland gives it as his opinion that, instead 

 of migrating from the Arctic regions, the herring 

 comes up from the deeper water outside towards the 

 shore ; and he notes that the fishermen of Montrose 

 now go out some sixty to eighty miles to meet the 

 herrings coming in, instead of, as formerly, fishing 

 within some twenty miles of the coast. Also, that 

 when the herring-fishing season is over, the fish hav- 

 ing departed, cod-fish roaming the deeper waters are 

 caught with herrings in their stomachs. M. A. Boeck, 



