154 MARKETABLE BRITISH MARINE FISHES 



on the evidence of Fishery Officers. But, on the other hand, 

 these Officers have forwarded to headquarters pieces of hydroids 

 from the sea bottom bearing small clumps of adhesive eggs, 

 which they supposed to be herring spawn, and which are now 

 known to be the spawn of the little sucker-fish called Liparis. 

 Herring spawn when found is always in irregular masses or 

 layers without any particular size and arrangement, while these 

 clumps arc rounded, and all of about the same size. The 

 search for the actual deposits of herring spawn is by no means 

 eas}-. In an expedition for the special purpose of this search 

 in August, 1883, in which the author took part, and which was 

 made in the Moray Firth on board the Jackal in the service of 

 the Scottish Board, in spite of numerous dredgings no herring 

 spawn was obtained. 



I have been informed however by Mr. James Alward, of 

 Grimsby, that it is well known to himself and to the line fisher- 

 men of that port that herrings spawn regularly every year in 

 August and September on the rough ground of the west shoal 

 of the Dogger Bank, and that it used to be the practice to look 

 for herring spawn adhering to the grease placed at the end of 

 the sounding lead, and to shoot the lines where the spawn was 

 found, the fishermen knowing by experience that an abundant 

 catch of haddock could be confidently expected on ground 

 where herring spawn was lying. 



From Aberdeen southward to Northumberland the principal 

 spawning time is August and the early part of September, and 

 further south it becomes later, off Yorkshire taking place chiefly 

 in October, while at Lowestoft and Ramsgate it occurs in 

 November. Although the actual spawning grounds are un- 

 certain, nothing is easier than to obtain the spawn from the ripe 

 fish on board a fishing boat at any of these places. It can be 

 received on glass plates, and if placed in water with a little milt 

 becomes fertilised, and can be hatched on shore provided a 

 constant supply of clean sea-water is maintained. 



The most complete investigations of the spawning of herrings 

 in their natural condition, and of the natural history of the fish 

 generally, are those made and published by a Commission of 

 German naturalists at Kiel, in the Baltic. This was a Com- 

 mission for the Scientific Investigation of the German Seas, 

 instituted in 1870 by the Prussian Minister of Agriculture and 



