clupeoide^e. -231 



to the westward, supplies the Hebrides, and moving onwards to the north of Ireland 

 divides into two columns, which take different sides of the island ; the other wing, 

 seeking the eastern coasts of Britain, and filling every bay and creek in its progress, 

 passes through the English channel, and, like the western phalanx, disappears 

 in the expanse of the Atlantic. The whole of this account is now supposed to be 

 imaginary by naturalists, who assert that the herring fattens in the depths of the 

 ocean, and approaches the shore in shoals merely for the purpose of depositing its 

 spawn. Cuvier, however, says " this celebrated fish quits the northern seas every 

 year in summer, and descends upon the western shores of France in the autumn in 

 numberless legions, or rather in dense shoals of incalculable extent, which spawn 

 by the way, and arrive, greatly attenuated, at the mouth of the channel in the 

 middle of winter. The fattest are those which are taken farthest to the north ; 

 when they reach the coast of Lower Normandy they are empty, and their flesh is 

 dry and disagreeable." The herring is unknown in the Mediterranean. 



On Sir John Franklin's first expedition we took several individuals of a clupeu 

 in Bathurst's Inlet, on the 5th of August, 1821, which I supposed to be the Common 

 herring. In the absence of specimens I can only subjoin the description which 

 was drawn up on the spot, although it is too general to serve the purpose of iden- 

 tifying the species. In the European herring the teeth on the intermaxillaries and 

 lower jaw are sufficiently conspicuous, but none were perceptible on these bones in 

 the Bathurst Inlet fish, whose characters, as far as noted, agree in all other respects 

 with those of clupea harengus. 



DESCRIPTION 



Of a recent herring taken in Bathurst's Inlet, August 5, 1821 . 



Form. — Head conical in profile, its not very acute apex being formed by the tip of the 

 under jaw, which extends about two lines beyond the upper one. Eyes large, and situated 

 laterally at an equal distance from the nape and tip of the snout. Nostrils a small elliptical 

 opening on each side, lying transversely on the upper surface of the nose, and not visible when 

 the fish is viewed in profile. Gill-covers and sub-orbitar bones covered with nacre. The 

 intermaxillaries form about one-fourth of the margin of the upper jaw : the labials are broad, 

 and their anterior edge is elliptically curved and minutely serrated or toothed ; a process 

 runs behind the narrow limb of the intermaxillary to be articulated to the snout, and there 

 are two other pieces or processes imbedded in the fine membrane that forms the anterior por- 

 tion of the parietes of the mouth: when the mouth is shut, the labials lie upon the broad 

 limbs of the lower jaw, which are composed of plates having the thinness and nacry appear- 

 ance of the sub-orbitar bones. The narrow, membranous lower lip, which folds over the edge 

 of the lower jaw, is stretched out by the opening of the mouth. The edge of the labials i? 



