342 LABRADOR 



century, 1550-1590, 1660-1680, 1747-1808, 1857-1878, 

 and also of recent years. Such large quantities have been 

 taken in the North Sea these past two years that all previous 

 records have been eclipsed. They disappeared from the 

 Norwegian coast from 1655-1699, and again from 1784- 

 1808. In 1871 they almost entirely disappeared again. 



The old theory that all the herring lived in one vast race 

 in the polar seas and made a circular tou^ of the waters they 

 are found in, was eloquently described by Buffon, but is 

 now abandoned. There is little doubt that many separate 

 shoals exist, and that they do not retire into ocean abysses, 

 or mid-ocean, where they cannot be taken. When they 

 leave the shore, they probably feed on the slopes in moderate 

 depths near the coast they frequent. They have been 

 captured in one hundred fathoms of water off the New- 

 foundland coast. They are easily affected by temperature, 

 preferring a temperature of 55 F. But they are caught in 

 water as cold as 37 F., and the Scottish fishery is mostly in 

 water at 41-42 F. 



The eggs (thirty-one thousand, on the average, to each 

 fish) which sink and stick to the bottom are eaten in vast 

 quantities by many species of animals in the waters. It 

 is, obviously, of great importance that the egg stage should 

 be as brief as possible. Nature seems to furnish the in- 

 stinct, therefore, to seek water at 55 F., the optimum 

 temperature for rapid hatching. In any case it is probable 

 that in the Labrador polar current which carries the tem- 

 perature of 30 F. in subsurface layers, the herring is not 

 likely to breed at all. This view coincides with the actual 

 observations that herring do not spawn north of the Mag- 

 dalene Islands and the west coast of Newfoundland. 



