598 MISCELLANEOUS 



remarkable is that furnished by the fisheries of Bohiislan, a province 

 which lies on the southwestern shore of the Scandinavian peninsula. 

 Here a variety known as the " old " or " great " herring, after being 

 so extremely abundant, for about sixty years, as to give rise to a great 

 industry, disappeared in the year 1808, as suddenly as they made their 

 appearance, and have not since been seen in any number. 



The desertion of their ordinary grounds by the herring has been 

 attributed to all imaginable causes, from fishing on a Sunday to the 

 offense caused to the fish by the decomposing carcasses of their 

 brethren, dropped upon the bottom out of the nets. The truth is, 

 that absolutely nothing is known on the subject, and that little is 

 likely to be known until careful and long-continued meteorological 

 and zoological observations have furnished definite information re- 

 specting the changes which take place in the temperature of the sea, 

 and the distribution of the pelagic Crustacea which constitute the 

 chief food of the herring-shoals. The institution of systematic ob- 

 servations of this kind is an object of international importance, 

 toward the attainment of which the British, Scandinavian, Dutch, 

 and French Governments might wisely make a combined effort. 



A great fuss has been made about trawlers working over the 

 spawning-grounds of the herring. " It stands to reason ", we were 

 told, that they must destroy an immense quantity of the spawn. 

 Indeed, this looked so reasonable that we inquired very particularly 

 into a case of the alleged malpractice which was complained of on 

 the east coast of Scotland, near Pittenweem. Off this place there is 

 a famous spawning-ground known as the Traith hole, and we were 

 told that the trawlers worked vigorously over the spot immediately 

 after the herring had deposited their spawn. Of course our first 

 proceeding was to ask the trawlers why they took the trouble of 

 doing what looked like wanton mischief. And their answer was 

 reasonable enough. It was to catch the prodigious abundance of 

 flat-fish which were to be found on the Traith at that time. Well, 

 then, why did the flat-fish congregate there? Simply to feed on 

 herring-eggs, which seem to be a sort of flat-fishes' caviare. The 

 stomachs of the flat-fish brought up by the trawl were, in fact, 

 crammed with masses of herring-eggs. 



Thus every flat-fish caught by the trawl was an energetic destroyer 

 of herring arrested in his career. And the trawling, instead of 

 injuring the herring, captured and removed hosts of their worst 

 enemies. That is how " it stood to reason " when one got to the 

 bottom of the matter. 



I do not think that any one who looks carefully into the subject 

 will arrive at any other conclusion than that reached by my col- 

 leagues and myself ; namely, that the best thing for governments to 

 do in relation to the herring-fisheries is, to let them alone, except in 

 so far as the police of the sea is concerned. With this proviso, let 

 people fish how they like, as they like, and when they like. At 

 present I must repeat the conviction we expressed so many years ago, 

 that there is not a particle of evidence that anything man does has 

 an appreciable influence on the stock of herrings. It will be time 

 to meddle when any satisfactory evidence that mischief is being done 

 is produced. Nature. 



