CHAPTER IV. 



ENEMIES OF THE HERRING. 



The most destructive enemies of tlie lierring are un- 

 questionably those which swim in the ocean. Although it 

 has been often stated that the whale is extremely de- 

 structive of the lierring, it is now known that the com- 

 mon or Greenland whale, Balcena mysticetus, as already 

 stated, has been found not to prey on tlie herring, and 

 that those varieties of the whale tribe which are known 

 to feed on it frequent the Norwegian, Scottish, and Irish 

 coasts. As to the Balcena mysticetus, or common whale, 

 we are informed by the talented Scoresby, in his valu- 

 able book "On the Arctic Regions," that its food "consists 

 of various species of Actinioi, Sepice, ITedusw, Cancri, and 

 Helices, or at least some of these species are always to be 

 seen wherever any tribe of whales is found stationary 

 and feeding. In the dead animals, however, of the very 

 few instances in which I have been enabled to open their 

 stomachs, squillfB or shrimps were the only substances 

 discovered." (Scoresby's Arctic Regions, vol. i. p. 469.) 



And of this whale, he says, that it occurs most abun- 

 dantly in the frozen seas of Greenland and Davis' Straits, 

 in the bays of Baffin and Hudson, in the sea on the south- 

 ward of Behring's Straits, and along some parts of the 



