Class IV. HERRING. 339 



This inftincl was given them, that they might Spawning. 

 remove for the fake of depofiting their fpawn in 

 warmer feas, that would mature and vivify it more 

 affuredly than ihofe of the frigid zone. It is not 

 from defect of food that they fet themfelves in mo- 

 tion, for they come to us full of fat, and on their 

 return are almoft univerfally obferved to be lean, 

 and miferable. What their food is near the pole, 

 we are not yet informed ; but in our feas they feed Fooj?, 

 much on the Onifcus Marinus^ a cruftaceous infed, 

 and fometimes on their own fry. The herring 

 will rife to a fly. Mr, Low of Birfa in the Orknies 

 jafTures me, that he has caught many thoufands with 

 a common trout fly, in a deep hole in a rivulet, intQ 

 which the tide flows. He commonly went at the 

 fall of the tide. They were young fifh, from fljf 

 to eight inches in length. 



They are in full roe the end of Jime^ and con^ 

 tinue in perfedlion till the beginning of winter, 

 when they begin to depofit their fpawn. The young 

 herrings begin to approach the fliores in Jtily and 

 Atigtift^ and are then from half an inch to twQ 

 inches long : thofe in Torkjhire are called Herring 

 iSile^. Though we have no particular authority Ret^^n. 

 for it, yet as very few young herrings are found ia 

 our feas during winter, it feems mod certain that 

 they muft return to jtheir parental haunts beneath 



* The Sueiies and Danes call the old herring 5///; but the 

 people of S/e/wick, from whence the Jnglo- Saxons came, call 

 the fry Sylen, 



Z 2 the 



