THE SHOKES OF BRITAIN. 73 



slioals are maintained. Nine millions of eggs have 

 been ascertained to exist in the roe of a single Cod, 

 and the hosts of this, and other species, which during 

 the fishing-season crowd our shores, are utterly beyond 

 human calculation. These swarms were formerly 

 believed to perform vast annual migrations in military 

 order from the Polar regions in spring, and back 

 again to their homes " beneath the ice " in the autumn. 

 The groundlessness, and even absurdity of this notion 

 has been shown, and it is now generally known, that 

 the fishes are at no part of the year more than a few 

 miles distant from the coast, but that on the approach 

 of warm weather an unerring instinct teaches them, 

 as by a common impulse, to seek the shallows near 

 the shore, in order to deposit their spawn within the 

 vivifying influence of the summer sun. This grand 

 business of life being accomplished, they again retire, 

 not to the Arctic ice, but to the deep water of the 

 ofling, where they may again vo\e in freedom and 

 conscious security. And this is an admirable ordi- 

 nation of Divine Providence, that these tribe are 

 thus periodically brought within the reach of man 

 precisely at the season when they are in the highest 

 condition, and therefore most wholesome, as well as 

 most agreeable. For they come from the deep water 

 fat, and in full health and vigour ; but after liaving 

 spawned they return sickly and poor, to recruit their 

 exhausted strength. 



The herring family [Chipeadce), including the com- 

 mon Herring, the Pilchard, the Sprat, the Shad, &c., 

 are the most important objects of our fisheries, and 

 particularly the first-named two species. 



