274 



Part III. — Seventeenth Annual Report 



VII [. THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING. 



By Prof. Dr. Friedrich Heincke, Director of the Biological 

 Station, Heligoland. 



Abstract by H. M. Kyle, M.A., B.Sc, Exhibition Science Scholar, 



St. Andrews. 



"Although the herring, principally from its great commercial import- 

 " ance, has formed the subject of probably more investigation, and of a 

 " consequent literature both popular and scientific, than any other sea fish, 

 " the too general manner in which most of these investigations have been 

 " conducted has led to the most contradictory results, and very little 

 " to the real advance of our knowledge of the natural history of the fish 

 "itself." Thus wrote J. Duncan Matthews in 1885 and, as might be 

 expected, the literature has considerably increased since then, but the 

 general manner of the investigations and the observations have under- 

 gone a complete change, becoming more and more accurate and minute, 

 with consequently further-reaching results. 



Matthews, however, made one exception, namely the work of Dr. 

 Heincke, who in 1878 and again in 1882 had published the results of 

 several years' study of the herring of the Baltic and North Seas. These 

 studies were not completed with these publications, and the research has gone 

 on, fostered by the German Sea-fisheries Association, year after year, until 

 now in the present year a further large work has appeared. If it has 

 taken so many years to bring this work to maturity, and if, as can easily 

 be seen to be the case, the volume of results has increased, and the 

 accuracy of which Matthews spoke become more perfect, then on those 

 grounds alone this work of Heincke's demands the attention of naturalists 

 in Great Britain, and of all those who take an interest in or are connected 

 with sea fisheries. For naturalists, moreover, there is something of even 

 greater interest than the results— the method, namely, which has gradually 

 changed and become perfected as the subject developed in the mind of 

 Dr. Heincke, so that it has been brought into line with the more advanced 

 ideas in biological science. Dr. Heincke has been aided further by the 

 criticisms of his earlier work which have appeared since its publication, 

 and one can rely upon finding all those criticisms considered and 

 answered in this present work. 



The magnitude of the research may be understood from the fact that 

 over 6000 herrings and sprats have been examined, and over 100,000 

 measurements taken. 



With such a volume of work before one, all of it important, it is diffi- 

 cult to choose, for a brief abstract, what should be chosen, without running 

 the risk of being too prolix, but in order to preserve historical continuity 

 somewhat, it will be better to take up the work of Matthews, and show 

 wherein the present work differs both with regard to method and conclu- 

 sions. The method of Heincke, however, will only be displayed in so far 

 as is necessary for a proper comparison of the works — that is, general 

 notions of it only will be given. It would take up too much space if 

 details were entered upon here, and a future paper will display it in full. 



Beginning, then, with the first paper of Matthews, namely, " Report as 

 to Variety among the Herrings of the Scottish Coasts," Part I.,* the object 

 sought and the results attained may be briefly mentioned. As is known, 

 herring fishing goes on round the Scottish coast at two separate seasons, 

 in winter, and in summer and autumn, and the desire of the author was 



* Fourth Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, 1885, p. 61. 



