THE COMMON HERRING. 237 



ing in March, and spawning in April, May, and June. All seek the deep 

 soundings in winter. At Fortune Bay, Newfoundland, they are taken in 

 nets during mid- winter beneath the ice. Here the soundings are 70 or 

 80 fathoms, the water land-locked and still. 



The fishermen suppose the frozen surface makes the sea dark and 

 apparently more secure for them. The return of Spring warming the 

 water and the summer seas, seems to be the s-ignal for this vast army, 

 each in its separate brigade, to move upward to the surface, and onward 

 along our coasts to fatten in the rolling pastures of the ocean, and 

 prompted by instinct, whose causes are unknown to us, but irresistible 

 to them, to shed their spawn now upon the ice-washed Labrador in 

 early Spring, now upon the warm sand bars of the Digby basin, or 

 lastly upon the shoals of Grand Manan or Prospect Bay, warmed by 

 the summer heats and autumnal sun. The pursuit of food must be 

 another great cause for their annual migrations. A close observation 

 of the food found in the stomachs of herrings at different seasons would 

 do much in discovering a general rule for the proverbial uncertainty 

 and caprice of their movements. 



"Upon the authority of Yarrell, who quotes Dr. M'Neil, I have stated 

 that the larger ones prey upon the smaller, but our fishermen deny the 

 fact of finding young herrings in the stomach of the larger ones. The 

 surface of the sea about our coasts in Spring and Summer, is fairly 

 alive with the medusae, and our shores are covered in win-rows with 

 small shrimps called brit and herring bait ; one cannot but fancy that 

 these rich gelatinous masses must allure them to the surface. 



To sum up all that I have obtained with regard to our herring : 



1. It is of one species. 



2. With regard to teeth, those upon the tongue and vomer seem con- 

 stant in all ; the larger specimens very rarely upon the lower lip ; 

 the smaller usually having them there. Generalising from examining 

 some hundred specimens, I would say the teeth become obliterated by 

 age, and that the more readily as they have no bony origin like the genus 

 Salmo. 



3. Some spawn in May and June, others as late as October. This 

 very remarkable fact, causing suggestions of how far it modifies the 

 growth and habits of each run, stands so far without any reason. 



4. These separate runs, hatched under very different circumstances, 

 and necessarily of different age and size, revisit their old haunts, spawn 

 the second year, and are three years in attaining adult size, and probably 

 by that time become absorbed in the runs of older fish. 



5. That great and small of all ages approach the surface and the 

 land in spring, and disappear in autumn. The warm seas and calm 

 weather of the summer being necessary for their spawning and their 

 food, — that as far as regards our coasts their only migration is from 

 the deep soundings of the sea banks to the coasts and back again, — 

 though I by no means assert that in higher latitudes they do not per-. 



