138 BOAKD OF AGRICULTUEE. [Pub. Doc. 



and stating to the bystanders, " These are the last two soles 

 in the JSforth Sea ; " but it is needless to add that millions 

 more have been caught since. 



The Government Fish Inspectors of England for 1878 

 estimated that the increase of herring in one season, if 

 none were destroyed, is sufficient to make a solid wall al)out 

 two hundred feet ])road and one hundred feet hiah, reachino; 

 around the greatest circumference of the earth. This is 

 the biggest fish story I ever heard, but you will find the 

 Avhole mathematical calculation in an Enolish Government 

 Blue Book on Fisheries. 



After this playful i)onderosity on the })art of the English 

 Fish Commissioners, we find them seriously stating that, so 

 far from the stock of fish decreasing, " tlte supply of Jish 

 taken, on the ivhole, is at least as great as it ever has been" 



Colonel McDonald, when questioned last May by Senator 

 Stockbridge of Michigan upon this su1)ject, stated that on 

 the coast of Norway the herring fishery had been prosecuted 

 during a period of fully one thousand years, and quoted 

 Professor Huxley as stating that "it is safe to say that, 

 scattered thr(jui>h the North Sea and the Atlantic at one and 

 the same time, there must l)e scores of shoals of fish, any 

 one of which would go a long way towards the whole 

 of man's consumption of this fish." Colonel McDonald 

 remarks: " Calculating upon this basis, and there is none 

 better, the herring fishery of northern Europe has prol)ably 

 yielded during the past four hundred years about twelve 

 hundred billions of fish;" and he adds, "There is no evi- 

 dence that the herring has been diminished as a result of the 

 fishery." 



The Migration of Fish. 



Touchino: the cominir and <ioing of the menhaden, Colonel 

 McDonald says: "The most i)otent infiucnce upon their 

 migration is believed to be the temi)oraturc. The schools 

 arrive when the surface tcm})erature of the water rises to 

 above 51°, and then depart any time when the temperature 

 falls below this point." 



Speaking of the migration of fish, Mr. Whymper, a com- 

 petent English authority, writes : - — 



