CHAPTER XXI 

 THE HERRING 



STRICTLY speaking, the subject of the present 

 chapter should not be allowed to enter this 

 honourable company at all, since it is to com- 

 prise only deep-sea people, to which so great an 

 authority as Dr. Giinther emphatically says that 

 the Herring does not belong. It has long been ima- 

 gined that the Herring, our common Herring that is, 

 from whom over fifty different species derive their 

 title, spawns in the Arctic regions, and at stated 

 periods pursues its way in unimaginable numbers 

 through the deep sea until it strikes our coasts, when 

 it rises to the surface and is thus brought within reach 

 of the fisherman. But this idea is now scouted by 

 ichthyologists. They teU us that the Herring never 

 goes far from its spawning grounds, which are in shallow 

 waters. That the immense shoals of Herring from 

 which our fishermen take their toll have come up 

 from deeper water a little farther off shore where they 

 have been feeding and getting plump in order to spawn, 

 which accounts for the fact that the Herring in full 

 season is always full of roe or milt, and when they have 

 spawned they are no longer fit to be eaten. Any one 

 who has ever tasted a Herring in the latter condition 

 will cordially endorse that statement as an indubit- 

 able fact. 



The romance of the Herring is a most fascinating 



29Z 



