The Harvest of the Sea / A contribution to the natural and economic history of the British food fishes

by James Glass Bertram

SALMON A DAY OR TWO OLD.

We cannot, unfortunately, obtain a sight of the ripening eggs of any of our sea fish at a time when they would prove useful to us. No one, so far as I know, has seen the young herring burst from its shell under such advantageous circumstances as we can view the salmon ova; but I have seen the bottled-up spawn of that fish just after it had ripened into life, the infant animal being remarkably like a fragment of cotton thread that had fallen into the water: it moved about with great agility, but required the aid of a microscope to make out that it was a thing endowed with life. Who could suppose, while examining those wavy floating threads, that in a few months afterwards they would be grown into beautiful fish, with a mechanism of bones to bind their flesh together, scales to protect their body, and fins to guide them in the water? But young herring cannot be long bottled up for observation, or be kept in an artificial atmosphere; for in that condition they die almost before there is time to see them live; and when in the sea there are no means of tracing them, because they are speedily lost in an immensity of water.

There are points of contrast between the salmon and the herring which I cannot pass without notice. They form the St. Giles’ and St. James’ of the fish world, the one being a portion of the rich man’s food, and the other filling the poor man’s dish. The salmon is hedged round by protecting Acts of Parliament, but the herring gets leave to grow just as it swims, parliamentary statutes being thought unnecessary for its protection. The salmon is born in its fine nursery, and is wakened into life by the music of beautiful streams: it has nurses and night-watchers, who hover over its cradle and guide its infant ways; but the herring, like the brat of some wandering pauper, is dropped in the great ocean workhouse, and cradled amid the hoarse roar of the ravening waters; and whether it lives or dies is a matter of no moment, and no one’s business. Herring mortality in its infantile stages is appalling, and even in its old age, at a time when the rich man’s fish is protected from the greed of its enemies, the herring is doomed to suffer the most. And then, to finish up with the same appropriateness as they have lived, the venison of the waters is daintily laid out on a slab of marble, while the vulgar but beautiful herring is handled by a dirty costermonger, who hurls it about in a filthy cart drawn by a wretched donkey. At the hour of reproduction the salmon is guarded with jealous care from the hand of man, whilst at the same season the herring is offered up a wholesale sacrifice to the destroyer. It is only at its period of spawning that the herring is fished. How comes it to pass that what is a highly punishable crime in the one instance is a government-rewarded merit in the other? To kill a gravid salmon is as nearly as possible felony; but to kill a herring as it rests on the spawning-bed is an act at once meritorious and profitable!

Having given my readers a general idea of the fecundity of fish, and the method of fructifying the eggs, and of the development of these into fish—for, of course, the process will be nearly the same with all kinds of fish eggs, the only difference perhaps being that the eggs of some varieties will take a longer time to hatch than the eggs of others—I will now pass on to consider the question of fish growth.

All fish are not oviparous. There is a well-known blenny which is viviparous, the young of which at the time of their birth are so perfect as to be able to swim about with great ease; and this fish is also very productive. Our skate fishes (Raiæ) are all viviparous. “The young are enclosed in a horny capsule of an oblong square shape, with a filament at each corner. It is nourished by means of an umbilical bag till the due period of exclusion arrives, when it enters upon an independent existence.” I could name a few other fish which are viviparous. In the fish-room of the British Museum may be seen one of these. It is known as Ditrema argentea, and is plentifully found in the seas of South America. But our information on this portion of the natural history of fish is very obscure at present.

There are many facts of fish biography that have yet to be ascertained, and which, if we knew them, would probably conduce to a stricter economy of fish life and the better regulation of the fisheries. Beyond a knowledge of mere generalities, the animal kingdom of the sea is a sealed book. No person can tell, for example, how long a time elapses from the birth of any particular sea fish till the period when it is brought to table. Sea fish grow up unheeded—quite, in a sense, out of the bounds of observation. Naturalists can only guess at what rate a codfish grows. Even the life of a herring, in its most important phase, is still a mystery; and at what age the mackerel or any other fish becomes reproductive, who can say? The salmon is the one particular fish that has as yet been compelled to render up to those inquiring the secret of its birth and the ratio of its growth. (See Natural and Economic History of the Salmon.) We have imprisoned this valuable fish in artificial ponds, and by robbing it of its eggs have noted when the young ones were born and how they grew. It would be equally easy to devise a means of observing sea fish. Why should we not erect a great marine observatory, where we could, as in the case of the Stormontfield-bred salmon, watch the young fish burst from its shell, and for a year or two observe and study the progress of the animal, and ascertain its rate of growth, and especially the period at which it becomes reproductive? The government might act upon this suggestion, and vote a few thousand pounds annually for the support of a series of marine fish-ponds; for something more is required than the resources of an amateur naturalist to determine how fish live and grow.

What naturalists chiefly and greatly need in respect of our sea fish is, precise information as to their rate of growth. We have a personal knowledge of the fact of the sea fish selecting our shores as a spawning-ground, but we do not precisely know in some instances the exact time of spawning, how long the spawn takes to quicken into life, or at what rate the fish increase in growth.

The eel may be taken as an example of our ignorance of fish life. Do our professed naturalists know anything about it beyond its migratory habits?—habits which, from sheer ignorance, have at one period or another been guessed as pertaining to all kinds of fish. The tendency to the romantic, specially exhibited in the amount of travelling power bestowed by the elder naturalists on this class of animals, would seem to be very difficult to put down.