Trawling for Herring on the Coasts of Scotland. 115 
appear to be clearly made out. But the large shoals of herrings 
which appear upon our coasts in the early summer and in the late 
autumn months, and which seem to come from deeper into shal- 
lower water, are at first either entirely composed of maties, or 
contain a very large proportion of them. 
The maties feed, develop their reproductive organs, and becoine 
full herring in the course of about three or four months, the full 
herring appearing, at first, only scattered here and there among 
the shoals, but gradually increasing in number, until they largely 
preponderate over the maties, or almost entirely constitute the 
shoal. The herrings then frequently aggregate for about a fort- 
night, in most prodigious numbers, in particular localities, like 
the Banks of Ballantrae, and the Traith or Fluke Hole, which 
_are suitable, from the character of the bottom or from other 
circumstances, for the reception of their ova, Here they lie 
in tiers, covering square miles of sea bottom, and so close to 
the ground that the fishermen have to practise a peculiar mode 
of fishing in order to take them; while every net and line used 
in the fishing is thickly covered with the adhesive spawn 
which they are busily engaged in shedding. So intent are 
the fish on this great necessity of their existence, that they 
are not easily driven from their spawning ground; but when 
once their object has been attained, and they have become spent 
fish, the shoal rapidly disappears,—the universal and very pro- 
bable opinion of fishermen being, that they withdraw into deep 
water, at no great distance from the coast. There is no positive 
evidence as to the ultimate fate of the spent herrings ; but there 
is much to be said in favour of the current belief, that after a 
sojourn of greater or less duration in deep water, they return as 
maties to the shallows and lochs, there to run through the same 
changes as before, passing a second time from the condition of 
matie to full herring, and from full to spent. Of the manner in 
which the change from the spent to the second full state is effected 
we know nothing, nor have we any information respecting the 
number of times which one and the same herring may run through 
the cycle. However, the enemies of the fish are too numerous 
and too active to allow us to suppose the existence of any one 
individual to be prolonged beyond two or three reproductive 
epochs. It is probable that the difference of age, whatever it 
may be, is sufficient to account, in great measure, for the varying 
size of adult herrings. 
Singularly contradictory statements are to be met with re- 
specting the spawning season of the herring. We have obtained 
a very large body of valuable evidence upon this subject, derived 
partly from the examination of fishermen, and of others conversant 
with the herring fishery ; partly from the inspection of the accurate 
