Dr. Mac Culloch on the Herring. 211 



that subject. If it is difficult to acquire this knowledge, we must 

 recollect that nothing remains long impossible to industry and ob- 

 servation. That nothing rational has been yet attempted, is 

 equally a stimulus and an encouragement ; nor do I know of any 

 department of this branch of natural science, whence an industri- 

 ous naturalist might derive more honour, with the additional satisfac- 

 tion of having conferred solid and important benefits on mankind. 



The respect due to Pennant's name, will not permit us to speak 

 lightly of him; yet, on this subject, he seems to have cither given 

 way to the influence of his imagination, or to have copied without 

 inquiry from the works of others, what deserves nothing but the 

 name of a pure romance. The readers of his woik on Zoology 

 must be aware of the theory to which I have given this name. Yet 

 I am uncertain if it originated with himself, or with Anderson the 

 historian of Greenland and Iceland. Since it is necessary however 

 that it should be stated, as the foundation of this biief sketch, I 

 shall give the most condensed view of it that I can, fiom he latter 

 author. It is marvellous that such a tale should have been copied 

 and quoted, and reprinted, not merely by the herd, but by the 

 careful authors of the French Encyclopedia ; and that, thus trans- 

 mitted, it should not only have been believed for half a century or 

 more, by those who, if they had reflected for an instant, or even 

 opened their eyes, must have seen that it was a fable, but that it 

 should have been the foundation of numerous expensive commer- 

 cial establishments, standing to this day as testimonials of the 

 fiction of one party, and the credulity of others. 



Anderson commences by saying that, in Iceland, the herrings 

 are two feet in length ; which is a preliminary worthy of what is to 

 follow. Every summer, he proceeds to say, an army of these fish 

 leaves those northern regions, being chased southwards by whales, 

 grampuses, sharks, and other large predatory fishes. As this army 

 proceeds to the south, it divides into two columns ; the eastern one 

 making for the North Cape, and descending along the coast of 

 Norway. This eastern wing, however, divides itself again into 

 two other columns ; one of these entering through the Sound into 

 the Baltic, and the other proceeding for the point of Jutland. 



P 2 



