88 ME. F. DAT OK THE MAEINE FATFWA 



landed the first lierriugs of the season : thus fishing has gradu- 

 ally changed from July to tlie third week in June, the quality 

 being small and mostly only fit for bait. This, it is stated, 

 prematurely disturbs the shoals and injures the future prospect 

 of the fishing *. 



As the Wick herring-fisheries from some cause diminished, 

 those at Fraserburgh began to increase in yield. Here the 

 same complaints were made as to the reduced size of the mesh 

 of the nets and the taking of immature fish ; but the fishing was 

 said to commence about the middle or 20th of July, the fish 

 being mostly taken further from shore than was formerly the 

 case ; while there is now (1878) no winter fishing except for 

 bait. The small fish do not fetch good prices, and are often 

 condemned as unfit for food. 



In questions of migrations of fish a very important considera- 

 tion must be. On what do these fishes live ? for animals which aftord 

 them sustenance may, or may not, be subject to meteorological in- 

 fluences. Manifold and various has been the reputed diet of the 

 herring, which, so far as I have personally observed, consists of 

 minute entomostraca, annelids, Crustacea, ova, and small fishes. 

 Digestion is very rapid, and continued after death ; consequently 

 examinations should be instituted on very fresh examples, and the 

 contents at once placed in spirits. The same phenomenon, as 

 regards a false membrane forming around the food, which I 

 observed last year occurred in the pilchard (see ' The Zoologist '), 

 is also perceptible, but to a lesser degree, in the herring. On 

 February 15th this year, I investigated the contents of herrings' 

 stomachs sent to me from Mevagissey in Cornwall, by Mr. Dunn : 

 they were taken about half a mile from land in twelve fathoms of 

 water; they contained the remains of small Crustacea &c. On 

 May 12th in one from the same locality I found this organ dis- 

 tended with nineteen sand-launces {Ammodytes) up to two and a 

 half inches in length, while the intestines of these small fish were 

 of a bright orange-colour due to the Crustacea which they had 

 been consuming. From the same place, between June 10th and 

 14th, the stomachs of some captured about eight miles from 



* The same opinion seems to have found favour at Peterhead, Aberdeen, 

 and Montrose, that the early fishing has a bad eifect on the offshore banks,, 

 increased by the repeal of the enactments against garvie fishing (see page 85), 

 which occupation commences in November and occasionally lasts until Marcli. 



