970 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
the island-belt, he may expect a successful fishing-season. 
But if the wind is north-east at the beginning of the 
spring, the fishery is always a failure. These migrations 
extend, however, over no great distance, being restricted 
to limits of some few leagues. The islander has a rough 
knowledge of the coast-line to a distance of at least 
some leagues from his home, and consequently can tell 
against which promontories or into which inlets the 
Stromming is driven by the wind prevailing for the time. 
So the islanders of Morko say, “If this wind holds, they 
will have Herring in the islands of Oster Gothland;” 
“With this wind the Herring will come to the island- 
belt of Stockholm;” etc. The places most affected by the 
Stromming are shallows with a level bottom in the large 
fjords, or the shores that abut on deep water, but do not 
fall sheer into the depths, having a fairly level bottom 
between the outer edge and the land. Such shores are 
generally to be found in these islands off promontories. 
They are all the better if there is a current. The bottom 
should be sandy or stony, and overgrown, at least in 
patches, with weeds. About midsummer, at the middle 
or end of June, the spawning is over, and the Strom- 
ming retires to deeper water. Towards autumn, in 
August, it again ascends, but never visits at this season 
the places where it has passed the spring or spawned, 
repairing instead to much deeper spots. In December 
or even earlier the greater number withdraw to their 
winter-quarters, which they choose in some deeper part 
of the sea. These places are not the same . year after 
year, for, when the Stromming is taken in winter with 
the ice-seine, it is found standing now at one spot, now 
at another; but it keeps, generally speaking, to the same 
neighbourhood. The islanders of Morko have certain 
strowimingsvarp, i. e. certain sheets of water where 
Strfimming may be taken with the ice-seine, but only 
the tract is known, not the exact spot.” 
The gregariousness of the Herring is bound up with 
its timidity. That it is easily alarmed by noise, we 
have already remarked, and Ekstrom adduces evidence 
to prove that the passing of steamers may frighten it 
away from the navigable channels of the island-belt, and 
also that the mere setting of gill-nets is sometimes 
enough to disturb its spawning and drive it away from 
a fishing-station of ascertained value. In Bohuslan too 
the firing of guns is now prohibited during the fishing- 
season. The Herring is not tenacious of life. The ra- 
pidity of its death is notorious, and has given rise in 
many places to the proverbial expression, “as dead as 
a Herring.” But, according to Ekstrom®, “the infor- 
mation we possess on this head is exaggerated. It is 
generally believed that the fish dies the very moment 
it is lifted above the surface of the water. I have per- 
sonally made numbers of experiments to test this state- 
ment, and have found that the time varies with the 
temperature of the atmosphere. In spring, at the end 
of April, when the air is still cool and usually cold, 
the Stromming lives 18—20 minutes after it has been 
taken out of the water. If caught late in the evening or 
at night, it sustains life for fully half an hour. But it 
must lie handled carefully and not exposed to any ex- 
ternal violence. As the summer approaches, at the 
middle of May for example, it never lives more than 
6 — 10 minutes, and at midsummer, when the air is 
quite warm, the duration of its life out of the water 
seldom exceeds 4 minutes. It should be remarked, how- 
ever, that the individuals on which I made the above 
experiments had not been entangled in the meshes of a 
net, but were taken, quite uninjured, in a vessel out of 
the water and deposited on the beach or in the boat. 
If the Stromming has been caught in the seine, it dies 
almost at the moment it leaves the water, and those taken 
with gill-nets are dead before they are drawn up.” 
In spite of its feeble dentition the Herring ranks 
among the predatory fishes, though its victims are 
usually of small size. In its earliest youth it lives on the 
most minute marine animals. At a length of 11 mm. 
a Herring larva had begun to feed on the larvte of 
worms (Lindstrom), and a young Herring 17 mm. long 
had its intestine “full of food, amongst which small 
species of Cyclopidce might easily be recognised” (Sun- 
devall). In its later youth and during the rest of its 
life the Herring, no doubt, lives principally on Entom- 
ostraca, Schizopods, and Pteropods. Certain parts of 
the North Atlantic teem with these animals, which are 
so plentiful as to afford a sufficiency of food to the very 
largest whales. The Norwegian fishermen class the 
Herring’s ordinary food ( Aaten ) under three heads, which 
they call jRodaat, Gulaat , and Svartaat or Krutaat. The 
first consists chiefly of Copepods, either extremely small 
or (e. g. Calanus finmarchicus ) as much as 8 mm. long. 
“It seems incredible,” writes Boeck, “that creatures so 
small can play so important a part in the economy of 
a whole country; but the Mackerel and the Autumn 
Herring owe their fatness almost entirely to these ani- 
Cf also Cuv., Val., 1. c., p. 63. 
