ZOOLOGY. 231 



minute shrimps, beroes, clios, and other marine 

 worms and insects, probably imperceptible to its own 

 organs of sight. These are taken into its mouth 

 along with a vast volume of water, and strained 

 through the fibres of the whalebone fixed in its 

 palate. The large whale has no teeth, and its throat 

 is very narrow. The whale that pursues the herrings 

 on the coast of Scotland, is the bottle-nose, an animal 

 of very different anatomy and habits from the great 

 northern whale. 



Ambergrease is found in the intestines of the sper- 

 maceti, but only in those that are in a sickly condi- 

 tion. 



The Herring. 



We have no satisfactory authority for believing 

 that the herrings breed in the northern seas, where 

 they have never yet been observed in the real icy 

 seas; nor have they ever formed a fishery on the 

 coasts of Greenland and Iceland. When they first 

 appear on the coast of Scotland, it is not in shoals, 

 but in small numbers, and they are then taken with a 

 feather or fly and a rod. 



There is nothing to indicate a migration from the 

 north ; on the contrary, there is every reason to be- 

 lieve they breed in our own seas ; but both the time 

 of their breeding and of their visits are irregular and 

 capricious. Much good money has been sunk by 

 erecting buildings and establishing fishing stations, 

 which the herrings afterwards abandoned. It is pro- 

 bable, the food of herrings consists of various me- 

 dusae, the presence of which is known by the lumi- 

 nous appearance of the water. 



Oysters. 



After the month of May, it is felony to carry away 

 the caltch (the spawn adhering to stones, old oyster- 

 shells, &c.) ; and punishable to take any oysters, ex- 



