These huge shoals do not stay long in one part of the sea. They make journeys of many miles, each shoal seeming to keep to itself. Like every other creature, the Herring goes where his food is. What food does he find? He swallows the small life of the sea, tiny transparent things like baby shrimps, prawns, crabs, and so on, which swarm even in the cold water which the Herring loves.
They are good juicy food, these little mites, and very plentiful; so no wonder the Herring becomes plump. He eats greedily of this good food. For instance, a young Herring, picked up on the beach at Yarmouth, was found to contain no less than one hundred and forty-three small shrimps. Not a bad dinner for a fish the length of this page! The ocean teems with small creatures; even the huge Greenland Whale feeds on them, and the Herring seems to live on little else.
Well, the shoals of Herring begin to move from their feeding place in the deeps, and come nearer the coast. As they get to shallower water they are crowded together near the surface. Where are they going, and why?
Perhaps you can guess--they seek warmer, shallower water, in which to lay their eggs. Now is the time for the fisherman! If the Herring kept to the deep they would be quite safe--and we should have no nice plump Herrings on our breakfast tables! Yes, now is the time to spread out miles of nets in the path of this living mass of silvery fish. They are in fine condition, well fed, and ready to lay their eggs.
They are moving slowly but surely towards the right place where those eggs should be laid. What guides them? Why do they go this way and not that in the vast ocean? We do not really know what guides them; so we say that they obey a wonderful, unfailing guide--"instinct."
Of course you have seen and tasted the "hard" roe of a Herring; but I do not suppose you have ever troubled to count all those little round eggs. Each roe contains some thirty thousand of them! What a huge number of young ones for one Herring! Still, this is not a large family, as fish families go. The Cod lays about nine million eggs!
At last the Herrings reach the breeding grounds that they sought, and the eggs are laid. The eggs of most sea-fish just drift on the surface of the ocean, at the mercy of their enemies, and washing here and there as the current sends them. The Herring's eggs sink to the bottom and, being rather sticky, adhere wherever they fall.
There they lie in masses, on the bed of the sea, and then guests of all kinds hasten to enjoy such a rare feast of eggs, laid ready for them. One of the first guests is the Haddock. He comes in his thousands, greedy for his part of the good food; but, knowing this, the fishermen also hasten to the spot, and the Haddock pays dearly for his love of Herring eggs.
Only a few out of each thousand eggs will escape their enemies, and the baby Herrings, which hatch in about a fortnight, run many dangers; thus, in the end, the huge family of Mrs. Herring is reduced to a small one. Even so, there are countless numbers of the tiny fish. They soon grow shining scales, like those of their parents, and move towards the coast.
It is a pretty sight, these little silvery Herrings playing in the shallow water. Millions of them dart about and flash in the sunshine, during the summer months, round our coasts. Sea-birds and other enemies hover round, to feast on the tiny fish. Great numbers of these baby Herrings are caught and sold as "Whitebait."