16 THE NOETH-EAST ATLANTIC. 



constant and ever-increasing supply of oils and skins, and these fisheries are 

 'accordingly conducted with, ever-increasing eagerness. But all things being 

 linked together in nature, from the huge whale to the microscopic foraminifer, 

 any disturbance of the balance in one section of the marine fauna must necessarily 

 produce a general displacement in all the other branches down to the most rudi- 

 mentary organisms. 



The fishes which are sought near the coasts and on the submarine banks are so 

 prolific that they do not seem to have yet been threatened with extermination. 

 Besides, the numbers taken by the fishermen are insignificant compared with the 

 prodigious slaughter going on between hostile species in the seas themselves. The 

 importance of the cod as an article of food is well known, but there is no danger 

 of the species being diminished by the fisheries in the Iceland and Rockall waters, 

 on the Faroer and Dogger Banks, or by the 20,000 jN'orwegians and Lapps engaged 

 in this industry about the Lofoten Islands ; only the shoals do not now always 

 make their appearance in the same regions, and before the application of tele- 

 graphy the fishermen often lost many days and even weeks in their search. While 

 most fish, such as the salmon, sturgeon, and smelt, leave the high seas to lay their 

 eggs in the streams and along the coasts, the cod, on the contrary, spawns in the 

 deep waters, where the embryos are developed far from the land. Hence, however 

 great may be the destruction of the fry and mature animal along the seaboard, the 

 vast laboratories where the race itself is renewed remain untouched. 



Economically still more important than the cod is the herring, at least 

 300,000,000 of which are taken on the Norwegian shores alone. It is well 

 known how much this fish has contributed to the prosperity and influence of 

 Holland. Yet the fishers have often fancied that it might grow scarce in the Atlantic. 

 But if the shoals disappear in one place, they never fail to reappear in another in 

 unreduced numbers, making the waters alive, so to say, and followed by multitudes 

 of carnivorous animals. " It seemed," says Michelet, " as if a vast island had 

 emerged, and a continent was about to be upheaved."* For two centuries after 

 the year 1000 the herring made its appearance chiefly in the East Baltic ; then it 

 showed a preference for the shores of Scania down to the middle of the sixteenth 

 century, after which the principal fishing stations were those of the North Sea, 

 along the sandy shores and cliffs of Scotland and Norway. Lastly, the herring 

 appeared in great numbers on the west coast of Sweden, in the Kattegat. But 

 notwithstanding all these shiftings it is not a migrating fish, as was formerly 

 supposed. It haunts the deep oceanic valleys, whence it rises towards the coasts 

 to deposit its spawn. Naturalists have also ascertained that it cannot live in 

 waters of a lower temperature than 38° Fahr.,t so that the fishermen now 

 know that when they enter a colder zone they will find no herrings there. 

 Experts are also able to distinguish the various species, and to say whether 

 they came from the Scotch or Norwegian shores, from the Baltic or German 

 Ocean. 



* "La Mer." 



t A. Boeclf, Van Beneden, &c. 



