Note on " Deserted Spaioning Grounds of the Herring." 271 



been visited in the spring. One of the best known banks 

 visited in the autumn is the Guillam Bank, near to the entrance 

 to the Cromarty Firth, while the bank off Ballantrae is the 

 most familiar resort during the spring. In addition to these 

 there are many others well known to our fishermen. The 

 famous Bohuslan spawning ground on the coast of Sweden is 

 noteworthy. All these spawning grounds are liable to be 

 deserted for longer or shorter periods, e.g., the Guillam 

 Bank has practically been deserted during the last fifteen 

 years ; the bank off Dunbar has been deserted for a still 

 longer period ; the Ballantrae Bank was all but deserted 

 for several years ; while the herring shoals left the Bohuslan 

 grounds in 1808, and did not make their appearance 

 again in any numbers until 1877. The disappearance 

 of the herring has been accounted for in an endless number 

 of ways, but we are still without definite information 

 on the subject, and likely to continue in this condition until 

 we learn something more of the causes which influence the 

 movements of the herring, either in search of food or in 

 selecting spawning grounds. 



An important step in this direction would be accomplished 

 in determining whether herring, like salmon, are in the habit 

 of returning to their birthplace during the spawning period. 

 This might be done by depositing on some of the deserted in- 

 shore banks large quantities of fertilised eggs. If, in the 

 following year, after the spawn had been deposited, these 

 banks were frequented by numbers of young herring, and 

 during the second year with a school of spawning herring, it 

 might be taken for granted that they were the products of the 

 eggs deposited. Supposing this to be the result, a number of 

 interesting problems would be, to a great extent, settled, and 

 an extremely practical conclusion arrived at, viz., — that 

 when spawning beds have been deserted, instead of waiting 

 until some accident brought a new school of herrings, some 

 twenty, thirty, or fifty years hence, it would be possible to 

 treat them as so many farms, restocking them when neces- 

 sary, so as to restore the fishing. Having been deeply im- 

 pressed when examining the Ballantrae spawning grounds 

 with the desirability of some such course as this being 



