NATURE IN MOTION. 69 



thousands support themselves and their families, and which, 

 at certain times, form the exclusive food of whole races, 

 as the sturgeon, upon which all Greek Christians subsist 

 during their long and rigorous fasts. Hence, also, the im- 

 portance of the herring, a small, insignificant fish, which 

 yet gives food to millions, and employment to not less 

 than three thousand decked vessels, not to speak of all 

 the open boats employed in the same fishery. Where 

 their home is, man does not know; it is only certain that 

 they are not met with beyond a certain degree of northern 

 latitude, and that the genuine herring never enters the 

 Mediterranean, and hence remained unknown to the an- 

 cients. In April and June, all of a sudden, innumerable 

 masses appear in the northern seas, forming vast banks, 

 often thirty miles long and ten miles wide. Their depth 

 has never been satisfactorily ascertained, and their dense- 

 ness may be judged by the fact, that lances and harpoons 

 thrust in between them, sink not and move not, but re- 

 main standing upright ! Divided into bands, herrings also 

 move in a certain order. Long before their arrival al- 

 ready their coming is noticed by the flocks of sea-birds 

 that watch them from on high, whilst sharks are seen to 

 sport around them, and a thick oily or slimy substance 

 is spread over their columns, coloring the sea in day- 

 time, and shining with a mild, mysterious light in a dark, 

 still night. The sea-ape, the "monstrous chimera" of the 

 learned, precedes them, and is, hence, by fishermen, called 

 the king of the herrings. Then are first seen single males, 

 often three or four days in advance of the great army; 

 next follow the strongest and largest, and after them enor- 



