THE TUNNY AND HERRING. 127 



about a liundred feet more or less, avoiding with 

 great care the shoal-water. Troops of them leave 

 the east in the month of May, and are then to be 

 found in abundance on the coasts of Sicily and of 

 Southern Italy. In the autumn they return to the 

 Tyrrhenian Sea. 



Pliny relates that the fleet of Alexander encoun- 

 tered such immense numbers of tunny-fish that they 

 could not make their way through the living mass, 

 nor could any noise or commotion they could raise 

 avail to disperse them. They were compelled at 

 last to range themselves in order of battle, as if to 

 break through an enemy's line. 



The dolphin, the salmon, and tlie sturgeon also 

 travel in companies of their own species, but not 

 in great numbers. They even mount the larger 

 rivers, and forget, for a time, the salt-waters in 

 which they had so many enemies to encounter. But 

 of all fish-travellers, for the distance traversed and 

 other points of interest, commend us to the inhabit- 

 ants of the colder parts of the temperate zone. 



The herring occupies the first rank in those classes 

 of animals of which man has sufficient knowledge to 

 convert them to his profit. It abounds in the northern 

 seas, and it has even been thought that immense 

 shoals of herrings live during a great part of the 

 year under the polar ice, where they are safe from tlie 



