R. THE HERRING TRIBE. 



172. THE HERRING CLUPEA HARENGUS. 



ABUNDANCE AND IMPORTANCE. The Herring is beyond question the most important of 

 food-fishes. Distributed, as it is, throughout the whole of the North Atlantic, it affords occupa- 

 tion, during ;i portion of the year at least, for immense fleets of fishing boats, and, according to the 

 estimate of Professor Huxley, the number taken every year out of the North Sea and Atlantic is 

 at least 3,000,000,000, with a weight of at least 1,000,000,000 pounds. This estimate is perhaps 

 more likely to be too low than too high. According to the statement of Carl Dambeck, given in 

 the United States Fish Commission Report, volume 3, page 21, the average yield of Herring in 

 Norway from 1850 to 1870 amounted to 1,452,000,000 pounds. Widegren 1 estimates that the total 

 yield of Herring on the Swedish coast of the Baltic amounts to 300,000,000 pounds. Holdsworth 

 placed the yield of Scotland in 1873 at 188,000,000 pounds, their capture requiring 15,095 boats 

 with crews of 45,494 men. In the same perio'l in the English fisheries he states that 15,331 boats 

 were used. He gives no estimate of the yield, but it is probably not very different from that of 

 Scotland. France, Ireland, and Belgium have also herring fisheries of considerable extent, and 

 Germany in a less degree. In 1874, according to compilation and estimates of Professor Hind, 

 200,000,000 pounds of Herring were taken in the waters of British North America, and in 1880 

 nearly 43,000,000 pounds were obtained on the east coast of the United States. 1 . Summing up the 

 aggregate of these statements and estimates, and allowing to Ireland, Belgium, Germany, and 

 France a product equal o that cited of Scotland, we have an aggregate of 250,000,000 pounds. 

 This total is not presented as an item of statistical information, but simply to emphasize by way of 

 illustration the statement made at the beginning of this paragraph. 



Commenting upon the supposed injurious effect of the fisheries upon the abundance of this 

 fish, Professor Huxley in his well-known lecture upon the Herring, delivered at the International 

 Fishery Exhibition at Norwich in 1881, remarked as follows: 



"It is said that 2,500,000,000, or thereabout, of Herrings are every year taken out of the North 

 Sea and the Atlantic. Suppose we assume the number to be 3,000,000,000, so as to be quite safe. 

 It is a large number, undoubtedly, but what does it come tot Not more than that of the Herrings 



1 United States Fish Commission Report, part iii, p. 33. 



'The Herring appears to have been one of the most conspicuous fishes in the Western Atlantic at the time of the 

 discovery and early exploration of America, as the following extracts from the voyages of early navigators will show: 



Josselyn wrote in 1675: "The Herrin, which are numerous, they take of them all summer long. In Anno liom. 

 1670, they weie driven back into Slack-Point Harbour by other great fish that prey upon them so near the shoro 

 that they threw themselves (it being high water) upon dry land in such infinite numbers that we ini>;lit have gone 

 np half-way the leg amongst them for near a quarter of a mile. We used to qualifie a pickled Ilerrin by (railing of 

 him in milk." 



John Smith, in 1631, remarked: "Herring, if any desire them, I hone taken many out of the bellies of Cods, 

 some in nets; but the Saluages compare their store in the sea, to the haires of their heads: & surely there are an 

 incredible abundance upon this Coast." And again: "Of Herrings, there is great store, fat, and fair; & (to my 

 minde) as good as any as I have seene, & these may be preserved, and made a good commodity at the Canarie*.' 



549 



