100 
HERRING. 
birds, and the Salmon in the sea. Herrings were led instinctively 
to return from the deep water to the place of their birth, 
much of the obscurity which (as we have seen) hangs over 
their motions would be removed. 
It has been confidently believed that the spawn is shed 
near the surface, and not far from land, although where the 
water is deep, close to the rocks, there is reason to thinli 
that it may take place at the distance of a few miles; but il 
is Mr. Mitchell’s opinion, supported by his own observation 
and that of a Russian observer, that this function takes place 
close to the bottom on hard or rocky ground. To the foregoing 
account, therefore, we add: — “We have fully ascertained that 
the shoals generally fix in one locality for depositation, and 
that immediately after spawning the Herrings proceed to sea. 
The proper incubation is as follows: — The female remains 
quiescent at the bottom. The whole of the roe is at once 
deposited. The milt, thoroughly ripened in the male, has 
become changed from a solid mass to a liquid of the colour 
and consistency of cream: the roe, although placed in the 
briny flood, becomes a firm united mass, somewhat larger than, 
but similar in shape to the roe in a full Herring. This 
lifeless mass, or egg -bed, has the power of adhesion: it grasps 
the stones, the rocks, the sea-weed, etc., so firmly that we have 
found it difiicult to remove or separate it until the mass was 
dried or dead. In fourteen days, or perhaps three weeks, the 
young are seen in great abundance near the shore, of a very 
small size; in six or seven weeks more they are observed to be 
about three inches in length, and it is likely that they attain 
to full size and maturity in about eighteen months.” In the 
early stage of growth they keep together, and so close to the 
shore that many of them are left in pools by the ebbing of 
the tide, — a circumstance we have not noticed as happening 
to the Pilchard; their movements, also, are as if actuated by 
a common impulse. But all the circumstances we have men- 
tioned have a tendency to lessen their numbers, so that we 
may well wonder how it is that the race itself is not 
extinguished. 
Lacepede says that in North America the spawn of the 
Herring have been carried by the inhabitants and deposited 
at the mouth of a river which had never been frequented by 
