FISHKS. 



557' 



are discontinued) several men placed on eminences near the 

 shore, called huers, who, with brooms in their hands, gave sig- 

 nals where the nets were to be extended, and where the shoals 

 of fishes lay : this they perceived by the colour of the water, 

 which assumed a tincture from the shoals beneath. By these 



propagate, so completely excluded from the action of the sun and the air. 

 The herrings come to the shores and estuaries to mature and propagate their 

 spawn, which they do over a greater range of the year than most other fish, 

 continuing the operation to the middle of winter, and retiring into deeper 

 water after that is done. But there is no reason to conclude that they have 

 much migration in latitude, or that they ever move far from those shores 

 which they frequent in the season. The fry too are found on the shores and 

 in the bays and estuaries frequented by their parents ; and they do not go 

 to the deep water till late in the season. They even appear to go farther 

 up the rivers than the old fish, for they may be taken in brackish water with 

 . a common trout-fly. The habits of the herring are thus a go«d deal like 

 those of the salmon ; and it is probable that there is a great similarity in the 

 whole oviparous fishes ; that they all frequent the banks and shoals for tho 

 purpose of spawning, and go to some short distance in deeper water to re- 

 cover their strength. Those which are viviparous, or bring forth their young 

 hatched, are under no such necessity ; though they follow the others to feed 

 upon them and their spawn or fry, and prcbably require the influence of 

 the air and heat of the shallow water to perfect the internal hatching of 

 their eggs. It has not been ascertained whether any of tliese fish spawn 

 every year; but tliere are seme facts which would lead to the couclusiou 

 that they do not. The white-fishing, on the east coast of Scotland, which is 

 principally carried on for the common cod [morhua vulgaris), and the had- 

 . dock (inorliua irgllfinus), used to be in a great measure suspended during 

 the spring, when the fish had spawned ; but in time, the fisherman found 

 out, that when the fish wero neither plentiful nor good upon the shallow 

 banks, they had only to be a little more adventurous, and go into the deep 

 water, in order to be successful all the year roiuid. Now the fish found in 

 the deep wat<'r cannot be those which have just spawned, for they are fat 

 and firm, and have young milts and roes in them ; and hence there is some 

 probability that thi' cod, and othi'r fish of the same structure, take two years 

 or more to produce their inimen.sc progeny ; and that thus there is not a 

 fish in the .sea but which is in season all the year, if its place of residence 

 and the moJe of taking it were known. It is by these general views that the 

 piu'ticular facts are ra;ide to connect themselves with the system of nature, 

 and lead to useful discoveries in thi- arts. When the fish are upon the shores 

 and in the estuaries, nay, when tliey are upon the wide ocean, they have a 

 liost of enemies. All fishes seem to be themselves (>;n«i(;o/'OKi — consuming 

 every thing that they can swallow ; and the number of sea-birds is perfectly 

 Incredible. The innnbers that are upon the uninhabited islets in Orkney, 

 Klietland, and the western isles, as well a-s at those inaccessible promontoriefi 

 «>u other parts of the coast, would exceed the belief of any one who bus not 

 uctiuilly seen tbcm, and yet they are nolliing to the munber.i found in lonely 

 places, surroujided by niore extenaive sciis. 



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