100 MARINE AND FISHERIES 



6-7 EDWARD VII., A. 1907 



later to escape, as M. J. Kunstler describes (La Question Sardiniere, Bordeaux, 1904) : 

 ^ Pour pecher, on recherche une bande de marsouins quel 'on suit jusqu'a ce qu'elle 

 ait reussi a former un banc compact de sardines. Puis la senne est mise a I'eau, en 

 meme temps que les rameurs impriment au bateau un assez rapide mouvement en 

 cercle. On entoure ainsi les marsouins aussi bien que les sardines.' 



The eggs of the herring family have as a rule the form of small translucent glassy- 

 spheres, possessing a strong hard shell like thin transparent horn. They may cling 

 together in spongy masses as bunches, or form a film of transp'arent pellets, on stones, 

 algae, shells, &c., and leaving interspaces through which the water can flow freely, and 

 thus (aerate the eggs, or they may have the buoyancy of pelagic eggs and float freely at 

 the surface (like the pilchard's and sprat's eggs), or lie loosely on the bottom, as is the 

 case with the ova of the shad. Eggs which cling together like those of the herring 

 are coated with a tenacious mucus, and as they fall through the water they are fertilized 

 by the milt of the male, which beclouds the water, and on reaching the bottom the ex- 

 ternal cement hardens so that they bunch together, or cling firmly to foreign objects. 

 Mr. J oel IngersoU stated to the New Brunswick Herring Fishery Commission, in 1836, 

 * At Seal cove and Whale cove;, at Seal cove particularly, (on Grand Manan island) I 

 have seen the net warp become as thick as my arm with the herring spawn, and the 

 nets and anchors covered also,' while Mr. Samuel Chaney, of Grand Manan, said> ' I 

 have seen it on anchors and warps and on the nets in great quantities.' 



In British 'Columbia the Indians lay twigs and tree branches on the shallow her- 

 ring spawning grounds, and after they are coated with the eggs, they take the twigs 

 out and either eat them, raw or dried, by nibbling the branches between their teeth, de- 

 vouring the eggs as a great dainty. 



All the Clupeidse have not dense heavy eggs, as already pointed out. There are, in- 

 deed, three types of ova : — 



(1) The demersal or non-buoyant eggs which cling together and are attached to 

 adjacent objects at the bottom, of which the sea-herring is an example. The alewife, 

 kyack, or gaspereau, produces non-floating eggs, not so dense as the herring's but much 

 heavier than those of the shad and less than one-half the diameter of the shad's eggs. 

 They adhere to each other and to stakes;, stones, &c., under water, and measure about 

 %o of an inch in diameter (1-27 mm.). They are fairly hardy, and survive conditions 

 that would be fatal to the eggs of the shad. 



(2) The semi-buoyant eggs like the delicate spherical ova of the shad, Vs ov Vi oi 

 an inch in diameter (3 .29 mm.), and very pale amber in colour (Plate IX., fig. 22). The 

 ball of yolk (a), which only fills about one-sixth of the 'chamber of the egg capsule, is 

 very granular but contains no large oil-globule. The eggs are tenacious when laid, but 

 harden under water, and do not cling to adjacent objects. They simply roll loosely on 

 the rock, sand, or shelving flats in the non-tidal parts of rivers, where the shad spawns. 

 The Twaite Shad (Clupea finia Guy.) occurs in Britain and in European waters, but 

 has not been recognized on this continent, though it is possible that it inhabits our 

 coasts ; indeed as Mr. Thomas F. Knight, in ' The Kiver Fisheries of Nova Scotia ' 

 (Halifax, N.S., 1867);, says, ' It is said by the fishermen of the Ba^^ of Fundy that there 



are two species or varieties This opinion is not confirmed by any description 



of the shad by naturalists; they know of but one species.' It produces an egg (Plate 

 IX., fig. 21) quite different in size and other features from the common shad or AUis 

 shad, as it is called in England. It is a much larger ovum than that of Clupea alosa, 

 being i%oo of an inch in diameter (4-25 mm.). Dr. Ernst Ehrenbaum has studied 

 very carefully the egg of this species at the Biological Station, Heligoland, and he 

 refers to a peculiar reticulated character possessed by the shell or egg capsule : thread- 

 like thickenings forming a rectangular networkj like a fine basket-work pattern;, so 

 that the shell externally appears as if divided into minute squares, some being incom- 

 plete (Plate IX., fig. 25). Ehrenbaum describes the egg in detail (Beitrage zur Natur- 

 gesch. einig. Elbfische, Wissensch. Meersuntersuch, Bd. 1), as well as the larval, post- 

 iarval and adult life-history, and on a later page I refer to his elaborate account. 



