UN 
sive spawning of spring herring, and found spawning herring in the stomach of the coal- 
fish, while the sea was full of newly spawned herring larvae. 
In the years 1866 to 1874, the large herring fishery was carried on to a very great 
extent on the North Coast, and there is no doubt that m these years spawning took place 
farther to the north than usual. 
As will be seen in the following chapter, shoals of spent spring herring are found 
as early as May on the North Sea Banks: it is therefore natural to enquire whether part 
of the spring stock possibly spawn, in certain years, on the banks of the North Sea. This 
is a question of long standing, discussed already by Axez Bozck. It has happened, in 
the history of the herring fishery, that the fat herrmg yield has been good for a long 
period of years, while that of the spring herring has been extremely poor. It is a dif- 
ficult and unsatisfactory task to study the facts of periods so far removed, when the 
observations made were few and far from accurate; we may yet learn from this that 
for a full and entire comprehension of the fluctuations in the herring fishery, extensive 
and manifold investigations are required. As regards the period investigated of late 
years, it may at least be said that the mvestigations with regard to age alone have largely 
contributed towards the elucidation of the fluctuations in the Norwegian herring fishery, 
and although there may yet be many other phases to explain, — to which we shall return 
later on — it must be presumed that these age investigations will in the future be 
of increasing importance, the increase being in proportion to the degree in which a more 
highly developed fishing industry is applied to the whole of that region of sea in which 
the herring move. 
CIRUAIP TOBIN, JU 
The Stock of Herring in the North Sea and Skagerak. 
The Herring fishery in the North Sea. Yield. 
According to the international “Bulletin Statistique”, the quantities of herring 
landed in the different North Sea countries in the years 1903 and 1909 were, (in kilo- 
grammes) as follows: 
1903 1909 
Norway....... 49.136.154 90.207.820 
Denmark. ..... 101.737 149.776 
Germany...... © 19.989.447 39.250.257 
Holland....... 100.675.413 88.466.920 
Belgium....... ke 1.255.600 
England....... 148.014.487 217.970.456 
Scouand sees 181.193.288 192.228.114 
Hotal 4190980526 629.528.943 
