HERRING TRIBE. 
489 
informed by fishermen of Newhaven that the herrings take considerable flights out 
of the sea; off Stonehaven, in the month of September, one of these men having 
seen a shoal, after the spawning-season, rise up out of the water in a vast mass of 
many yards in extent, sparkling and flashing and flying several feet above the 
surface. . . On some of the coasts, as on those of Norway, the herring-shoals are 
frequently accompanied or pursued by numbers of whales and aquatic birds, which 
are all occupied in preying on them. The large dark masses of the whales rising 
and blowing and throwing up great quantities of the herring into the air, sparkling 
and glittering in the clear winter day; the constant movements of the birds, with 
their shrill notes, actively engaged in seizing their easily-obtained food, vying with 
man in their attacks on the countless myriads of herrings, form a most wonderful 
sight.When the herrings swim near the surface, if it is calm weather, the 
sound of their motion is distinctly heard at a small distance; and at night their 
motion, if rapid, causes a beautiful bright line from the phosphorescent quality of 
the skin; and it is also said, that when a great body of them swims near the surface, 
their presence is ascertained by a strong fishy smell.” In another passage, after 
stating that the idea of fish migrating from the Arctic regions southwards is purely 
erroneous, the same author observes that “ from all circumstances known of the 
natural history of the herring, in regard to its visits on our own coasts and the 
coasts of other countries, it is reasonable to suppose that it inhabits the seas in the 
neighbourhood of the coasts on which it spawns, and that it arrives at particular 
seasons near the coasts for the purpose of spawning, the shoals leaving the coasts 
immediately thereafter; and the early or late, distant or near, approach to the 
coast in different years, perhaps depends on the clear and warm, or dark and cold 
weather of the seasons, as w r ell as upon the depth of water at the feeding and 
spawning-grounds.” Herrings have been kept in a brackish-water pond com¬ 
municating with the Humber, where they became dw T arfed in size. 
The much smaller sprat (C . sprattas), so abundant on the Atlantic coasts of 
Europe, differs by the absence of vomerine teeth; while the shad ( C. finta), shown 
in the upper figure of the illustration on p. 488, may be distinguished by having- 
one or more black blotches on the sides. I 11 this species, which not only frequents 
the European coasts, but ascends rivers, and is abundant in the Nile, the bony gill- 
rakers, of which there are from twenty-one to twenty-seven on the horizontal 
portion of the outer gill-arch, are short and stout. On the other hand, in the 
similarly spotted allice-shad (C. alosa ) the gill-rakers are very long and fine, and 
number from sixty to eighty on the part mentioned. Both the shads are consider¬ 
ably larger than the herring. Whereas in both the herring and the sprat the 
opercular bone is smooth, in the pilchard or sardine (G. pilchardus) this part is 
marked by ridges radiating towards the subopercular. This species is abundant 
in the English Channel, the seas of Spain and Portugal, and the Mediterranean; 
Yigo Bay being noted for its sardine-fishery. 
The following account of the sardine-fishery is taken from the Asian news¬ 
paper. “ Sardines are migratory in their habits, and the exact locale of their 
winter quarters, despite frequent research on the point, remains a mystery. In 
ordinary years it is the custom for the fish to make their first appearance 
on the coast of Africa about the end of March, then passing northward in 
