344 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



the most part of fish-spawn, more particularly that of the Cod- 

 fish, which is abundant in these northern waters.* The annual 

 take of Herring is prodigious. It has been computed that a million 

 of barrels, representing 800,000,000 fish, are taken in Scotland ; 

 the Norwegian Herring fishery is as productive as the Scotch 

 fishery; the English, the Irish, the French, and the Dutch fisheries 

 are also very productive. Estimating the gross produce of these 

 four fisheries at only the same amount as the Scotch fishery, 

 2,400,000,000 Herring must be annually taken by these four 

 nations — the British, the French, the Dutch, and the Norwegian. 

 Yet the destruction of Herring by man is probably insignificant 

 compared with that wrought by other natural agencies. Mr. 

 James Wilson, in his ' Tour round Scotland and the Isles,' 

 vol. ii. p. 106, says, when describing St. Kilda : — "Let us sup- 

 pose that there are 200,000 Solan-Geese in the colony of St. 

 Kilda (we believe, from what we saw, the computation moderate), 

 feeding there or thereabouts for seven months in the year. Let 

 us also suppose that each devours (by itself or young) only five 

 Herrings a day — this amounts to one million ; seven months 

 (March to September) contain 214 days, by which, if we multiply 

 the above, the product is 214,000,000 of fish for the summer 

 sustenance of a single species near the island of St. Kilda."t 

 Cod and Ling, of which three and half millions were taken in 

 Scotland in 1876, feed largely on Herring, six or seven being 

 often found in the stomach of a Cod. These, it is thought, may 

 consume twelve times as many Herring as the four nations 

 together. Gannets, of which 10.000 dwell on Ailsa Craig, must 

 catch more Herring than all the fishermen of Scotland ; Whales, 

 Porpoises, Seals, Codfish, Dogfish, predaceous fish of every 



* G. Lindesay, ' Fortnightly Ee view,' November, 1894. — Codfish are also 

 infested with parasitic Copepoda. According to Surgeon Bassett-Smith, it is 

 rare to find a fairly grown Cod without being able to take many specimens of 

 the small semitranslucent Anchorella uncinata attached to the folds about the 

 lips and in the gill-cavity. In its mouth and on the palate will be seen 

 frequently half a dozen specimens of C aligns curtus; on the gills, deeply em- 

 bedded, a Lemea branchialis, and on the body sore places where a number 

 of Caligus millleri have been fixed. And, although this investigator con- 

 siders that in the great majority of cases these parasites are not prejudicial 

 to the life of the fish, he describes Lemea branchialis as a certain exception 

 to the harmless rule (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 6th ser. vol. xviii. pp. 9 and 10. 



f Gf. J. M. Mitchell, * The Herring, its Nat. Hist, and National Im - 

 portance,' p. 37. 



