4720 Fishes. 



" If you are aware of any other points which would require observa- 

 tion, be so good as let me know. 



" Believe me most sincerely yours, 



(Signed) " H. D. Goodsir. 



" To Dr. Knox." 



Thus, after the lapse of nearly twenty years, a student of my own, 

 favoured by his position, confirms, to an extent I had scarcely hoped for, 

 my original observations on the food of the herring. I call the attention 

 of naturalists, and especially of my esteemed friend M. Valenciennes, 

 to these facts. As regards man, they are the most important which, 

 next to the capture of the herring, can be brought forward in respect 

 of the natural history of the herring; and they explain certain economic 

 statistics bearing on the great fisheries of Holland, which otherwise 

 were wholly unintelligible. The naval power of the ancient republic 

 of Holland was created and based on a deep-sea herring fishery ; the 

 modern herring fisheries of France, England and the Scandinavian 

 States are shore and boat fisheries, of little value as a food -producing 

 employment, and of no value whatever in a naval point of view. 



Prior to these researches the difficulty of discovering the food of the 

 herring was proverbial, and had been declared such by all. Soon after 

 my discovery of the food of the vendace, I spoke with that true patriot 

 and most amiable and talented man, the late Sir John Sinclair, on the 

 subject, and he informed me that he had often turned the matter over in 

 his mind, but without coming to any definite conclusions: he put into 

 my hand a pamphlet, by the late Sir Gilbert Blane, entitled ' Reflec- 

 tions on the Present Crisis of Public Affairs,' dated 1831, pointing out 

 to me the following passage : — " There are few problems of Nature in 

 the solution of which naturalists are more at fault than the disposal 

 and nutrition of the finny family. It is proverbially true that they 

 prey upon each other; but it is so much even beyond conjecture to 

 ascertain what is the ultimate food of fish, that it is the tenet and belief 

 of some of the most respectable inquirers into this department of 

 Nature, that the last fishes which those next above them make their 

 food have no sustenance but water. The phenomenon of the immense 

 shoals of herrings, and the fact of gold and silver fishes living without 

 any visible food, are some of the grounds upon which they found their 

 doctrine." When I removed from the stomachs of the herring, the ven- 

 dace, the char and the Loch Leven trout, hundreds of Entomostraca, in 

 the presence of this excellent nobleman, and, placing them under a mi- 

 croscope, convinced him that the popular belief that all or any of these 



