Dr. Mac Culloch on the Herring. 213 



Arctic seas, and that it does not, as the author and Mr. Pennant 

 imagine, migrate " heaven directed" to our shores. It is equally 

 certain that it does not take the directions here described along 

 them, that there is no such progress along the east and west 

 coasts from a central point, and no such reunion at the Land's end. 

 It is no less certain that its appearance, instead of being thus regu- 

 lar and constant, is quite the reverse, and that it is marked by ex- 

 treme irregularity, as well for the period, as for the places visited. 

 Of the imaginary original eastern army, I do not pretend to know 

 much : the few remarks I have to offer, refer principally to the 

 western or supposed Scottish column. 



With respect, in the first place, to the original breeding station 

 of the herring, the statement is unsupported by any evidence. We 

 have no actual reports respecting their breeding or abundance in 

 the northern seas. I cannot find that they have been remarked as 

 abounding in the Arctic ocean, nor that they have been observed in 

 the proper icy seas. They have never formed a fishery either in 

 Greenland or Iceland : nor have our whale fishers taken any par- 

 ticular notice of them. It is a pure error to suppose that the great 

 northern whale feeds on them. That fish is incapable, from the 

 structure of its oesophagus and mouth, of swallowing so large a 

 fish ; and its food is well known to consist of minute shrimps, 

 beroes, clios, and other marine worms and insects, among which 

 the cancer pedatus and oculatus appear to be the most remark- 

 able. The whale which pursues the herring on the Scottish coasts, 

 is the piked, or bottle-nosed whale ; an animal of very different 

 anatomy and habits. 



On the subject of the imaginary eastern army, all that appears to 

 have been ascertained relates to the Swedish and Norwegian 

 fisheries. The herrings were first noticed on the coasts of Sweden 

 in 1740, and at that period the Gotheburgh fishery was established. 

 The herrings were also abundant on the coasts of Norway before 

 1790. After that date they deserted those, and made their appear- 

 ance at Marstrand. So far also from this visit having: been among 

 the first, which it should have been according to Anderson's state- 



