172 WHEN THE HEEKING IS BEST. 



poses ; and if the fishery could be so arranged, that is the time 

 at -which it should be caught for consumption. At that period 

 it is very fat, its feeding-power being all developed on its body ; 

 the spawn is small, the growth of the roe or milt not having 

 yet demanded the whole of the nutriment taken by the fish. A 

 full herring is one in which the mUt or roe is fully developed. 

 The maties develop into spawning herring with great rapidity — ■ 

 in the course of three months, it is said. The herrings at the 

 spawning season come together in vast numbers, and proceed to 

 their spawning places in the shallower and consequently warmer 

 parts of the sea. As Gilbert White says, " The two great motives 

 which regulate the brute creation are love and hunger ; the one 

 incites them to perpetuate their kind, the latter induces them 

 to preserve individuals." In obedience to these laws the 

 herring congregate on our coast, for there only they find an 

 abundant supply of food to mature with the necessary rapidity 

 their milt and roe, as well as a sea-bottom fitted to receive 

 their spawn ; and they are thus brought within the reach of 

 man at what many persons consider the wrong time of their life. 



As to this division of the question, it has been said that it 

 matters not at what period you take a herring, whether it be 

 old or young, without or with spawn ; that fish cannot again 

 be caught, and will never spawn again ; and it is argued, 

 therefore, that the taking of fish in " the family way " no more 

 prevents it from reproducing than if it had been killed ia the 

 condition of a matie. The same argument was used in the 

 case of the young salmon ; and it was asked : If you kiU all 

 your grilse, where are you to find your salmon 1 



The herring breeds, then, and is caught in greater or lesser 

 quantities, during every month of the year. There is no 

 general close-time for the herring in Scotland. How is it that 

 the time selected by fishermen for the capture of this fish corre- 

 eponds with the period when it is a crime to take a salmon J 

 If a gravid salmon be imwholesome, is a gravid herring good for 

 food t Do not the same physical laws aflect both of these fish 1 

 There cannot be. a doubt that at the period of spawning, this 

 fish, as well as all other fish, is in its worst condition so far as 

 its food-yieldiag qualities are concerned, because at that time of 

 its life its whole nutritive power is exerted on behalf of its seed, 

 and its flesh is consequently lean and unpalatable. Yet it is a 

 great fact that the time which the herring selects to fulfil the 

 grandest instinjt of its nature is the very time appoiated by 



