190 THE HERRING. 



land ; and it is asserted that, on the morning after the 

 removal of this wise restriction, four fishing-boats brought 

 in and sold as garvies above 400,000 herring-fry. Had 

 these fish been spared for a few months, and sold as 

 herring at the rate of two a penny, they might have 

 brought about 880, while as garvies they probably did 

 not sell for more than as many farthings. We are 

 aware that a report by Professor Huxley, Dr Lyon 

 Play fair, and, we think, Mr Caird, urges that the 

 slaughter of sea-fishes by all means invented by human 

 ingenuity is so comparatively trifling, that it is ridicul- 

 ous to interfere with trawling and garvie-catching. We 

 read it with astonishment, and now protest against it 

 as sanctioning a loose morality and reckless disregard 

 of the future by no means to be encouraged. We are 

 persuaded that it is possible to make fatal inroads upon 

 the herring, type of inexhaustible fecundity though it 

 be considered. Able ichthyologists maintain that the 

 sprat or garvie is not the young of the herring, the 

 distinction between them consisting in the position of 

 the fins, and in the belly of the one being serrated, while 

 the other is smooth. We are at a loss what authority 

 to attach to the statement of an anonymous writer in 

 the ' Cornhill Magazine,' who, from experiments he has 

 made, insists that the latter peculiarity leaves the fish 

 as it grows older, and that the sprat or garvie is really 

 the young of the herring. Eemembering the long 

 ignorance of even the scientific in regard to the pro- 

 geny of the salmon, we think it worth while that this 

 statement shall be tested ; and having heard Professor 

 Huxley arguing that the archetype of the human frame 

 is that of the monkey, we presume that he, at least, will 

 not be astonished if it be shown that the herring is 

 merely a developed garvie. 



There is another point as to which Government in- 

 fluence and encouragement may tell most beneficially 

 upon the fisheries, as well as upon the hardy race of 

 men by whom they are prosecuted with an amount of 



