HERRING. 
959 
untenable, the latter stating that, in his opinion, “each 
marine region as a rule has its native Herring, which 
is easily distinguished from other forms by its migrat- 
ing at a different time of year, when it forsakes its first 
home in the depths, and approaches land to deposit its 
roe in more suitable localities”. Mac Culloch' 1 pur- 
sued the criticism of Andersson’s theory, and in direct 
opposition to the regularity assumed by Andersson, he 
ranged the unaccountable variations in the Herring’s 
approach to the coast. It was hence that Yar- 
eell b drew his well-known and often misused expres- 
sion, “the Herring is a most capricious fish.” But Mac 
Culloch also endeavoured to find an explanation of 
this fickleness in the different motives that induce the 
Herring to migrate from deep water to the surface and 
the shallows. Among the causes hereof he adduces the 
desire of spawning, a point already touched upon by 
Noel, the search for food, consisting of animals known 
in his time as “medusEe and other analogous marine 
vermes, which are produced in such abundance during 
the summer, in all the shallow seas,” and the fear of 
enemies. In Sweden Nilsson has been the most emi- 
nent exponent of this theory, and he attributed thereto 
a great economical importance, for he based on it his 
assertion that a Herring-fishery may be utterly de- 
stroyed, or at all events ruined for many years, by 
the manner in which it is carried on. The Bohusl&n 
fishery was in his opinion a case in point; but this 
conclusion has been opposed by many. 
The pith of the question evidently lies in the elu- 
cidation by natural history of the varieties of the Her- 
ring, if such varieties be really in existence. Nilsson 
originally 6 adopted eight constant, local varieties: 
1) The Ocean Herring (Forma oceanica ): Rabo'' 
Herring (var. oeresundica), Kulla 6 Herring (var. 
schelderensis), B oh u si an Grass-Herring (var. 
majalis), Bohuslan Breeding-Herring or Great- 
Herring (var. bahusica), Norwegian Winter- 
Herring (var. hiemalis), Norwegian Autumn- 
Herring (var. autumnalis ) ; 
2) The Shore Herring (Forma tceniensis ): KivilG 
Herring (var. cimbrica), Baltic Herring or 
“Stromming” (var. menibras). 
Subsequently 9 he reduced the number of these 
varieties to six, by uniting the Rabo Herring with the 
Kulla Herring and the Bohuslan Grass-Herring with the 
Great Herring. The names given above state where 
the varieties were supposed to occur, and the distinctive 
characters were derived from the differences in the size 
of the head and eyes, in the depth of the body, in the 
position of the fins, and in the number of marginal scales 
on the belly. Merely a hasty observation is enough to 
show that these characters hold good in the main, or, 
to employ Nilsson’s words, when the Herring appears 
in large numbers together. And yet they are only signs 
of different developmental stages. It is but natural, 
however, that among innumerable individuals, as when 
the Herring appears in multitudes sometimes so densely 
packed within inlets of the sea that the name of moun- 
tains has been conferred upon them, individual diffe- 
rences should be comparatively easy to trace. But if 
we eliminate these individual variations by calculating 
a sufficient number of averages from an adequate num- 
ber of individuals, we can make remarkable discoveries. 
Among the factors necessary to an estimation of the 
significance of form-characters, or to a determination of 
the natural relations obtaining between different varie- 
ties or species, the differences of sex and the alterations 
of growth occupy the foremost rank. In order to find 
expressions for the former, I have caused the averages 
to be calculated for 75 Baltic Herrings, measured by 
Air. Lundberg, Inspector of Fisheries' 1 . 
“ Quart. Journ. Sc., Lit., Arts, vol. XVI, p. 210, London 1823 — 24. 
b Hist. Brit. Fish., ed. 1, vol. II, p. 112. 
c Prodromns Ichthyologice Scandinavian , p. 23. 
d Raa is a large fishing- village on the Sound, south of Helsingborg. 
e Kullen is a promontory north of Helsingborg, south of Schelder Bay. 
f A large fishing-village near Kristianstad. 
g Skandinavisk Fauna, Fiskarne, p. 493. 
h Bih. Vet. Akad. Handl., Bd. 3, No. 4. 
Scandinavian Fishes. 
121 
