Not a Fable.—A boy three years of age was asked who made him? With his little hand and foot upon the floor, he artlessly replied—“God made me a little baby, so high, and I grew the rest.”—Mirror.
Public.—We have a reading, a talking, and a writing public. When shall we have a thinking public?
The mind is a field, in which, so sure as man sows not wheat, so sure will the devil be to sow tares.—Bentham.
THE HERRING.
CLUPEA HARENGUS.
First Article.
Of all the branches of study into which natural history has been divided, the most interesting, from its extensiveness, its variety, and the almost insurmountable difficulties which it presents to the student, is Ichthyology. To acquire a thorough knowledge of zoology requires much labour, study, travel, and considerable risk; in like manner with ornithology, in the prosecution of which the difficulties are greater, from the mixture of elements; but still the inhabitants of the air have thus much in common with us, that they live in the same atmospheric medium, derive their sustenance from the same earth, and although the difficulties of following their motions, and observing (unseen by them) their habits and natures, are considerable, yet still, thanks to the extension of science, they have not proved unconquerable, and the telescope, in that form called the ornithoscope, has enabled man to acquire a large store of information on this interesting subject. But with ichthyology how widely different! Here the preliminary obstacle which presents itself is an element fatal to the existence of man within it, and out of which the creatures with whose nature he would fain be acquainted cannot exist. His very powers of observation are thus rendered useless, except in a very limited degree. They are bounded by a glass vase, or a small clear pond at the utmost, and confined to a few specimens of the smaller fishes, and even then it is doubtful whether circumstances may not have altered their really natural habits. Yet above these obstacles the mind of man has risen, and by the union of analogy with laborious and constant observation, he has succeeded in classing a large amount of the tenants of the mighty deep. But before he can ascertain what proportion, or write the history of any one of them fully, he must discover some substitute for gills which will enable him to extract the necessary air for his existence from the water, and thus enable him to search the depths of ocean, and seek its inhabitants in their haunts. That such may yet be discovered by the ingenuity of man, let no one deem impossible.
Amongst the fishes hitherto discovered and classed, the herring (Clupea harengus) is one of the most universally known, most generally useful, and one of the greatest boons of an all-bounteous Providence to the inhabitants of these countries. Abundance, the universal producer of contempt, has caused this beautiful creature to be despised; but to the naturalist’s eye few creatures are possessed of greater charms. When first taken out of the water, it is of a dark-bluish and green colour on the back, lightening down the sides to a silvery blue, which shades to white on the belly. The scales have a clear lustrous golden colour, which changes in various shades of light after the manner of mother-of-pearl; they lie over one another in regular lines, with the convex edges pointing towards the tail. The termination of the body is remarkable for the beautiful dark-green colour which it exhibits when held before the light. The fins are seven in number—one dorsal, of eighteen or nineteen rays; two ventral, of nine rays each; one anal, of seventeen rays; two pectoral, of eighteen or nineteen rays each; and the caudal, or tail fin, of eighteen or nineteen rays. The eyes are placed in the middle of the sides of the head; the iris is of a silvery white colour, and the pupil black. The spine consists of fifty-six vertebræ. The ribs are thirty-five or six in number on each side, and there are several minute bones below the ribs, which terminate in soft elastic muscles at the anal fin, and serve to give it strength and elasticity. Fifty-two bones compose the head. The bronchiæ or gills are four on each side, each gill being supported by an arched cartilage; and there are two imperfect gills without the arch, which join the gill lid, and appear to regulate its motions. The convex side of the gills is furnished with fringed fleshy fibres, of a strong red colour when the fish is healthy; the concave side, which is next the mouth, is furnished with long serrated spines. The heart is placed in a cavity near the gills, above the stomach; it is three sided, and consists of a single auricle and ventricle. The œsophagus, or gullet, is remarkably short in proportion to the size of the fish; the stomach is thin, membranous, and capable of great distension. The gut is of uniform size throughout. The gall bladder is small, and of a dark-green colour; the liquid is of a light claret hue, having a sweetish pungent taste. The air bag, or vesica natatoria, is of a silvery white colour, round, of nearly the length of the stomach, and pointed and narrow at both ends; it is connected with the funnel-shaped posterior part of the stomach by a duct. The use of the vesica natatoria, or, as it is commonly called, the swim, is to enable the fish, by inflating or expelling the air from it, to rise or sink, for if the air-bag of a living fish be pierced, the creature sinks at once to the bottom. The under jaw of the herring projects beyond the upper. The form and consistency of its nose proves its use for the purpose of feeling, in the absence of the cirri or feelers possessed by other fishes. The skin not being provided with the corpus papillæ, and being besides covered with scales, it is supposed that the sensation of touch is either very limited or wholly wanting. The herring is provided with two nostrils; and from the perfection of the olfactory organ, it is presumed that its sense of smell is very acute. It has no external organs of hearing but a fringed orifice below the eye on the inner side of that part of the head which covers the gills. Fishermen affirm that their sense of hearing is very acute, and state instances of their immediately ceasing the peculiar pattering noise which they are accustomed to make on calm evenings, if a loud sound is made on any part of the interior of the boat.
The Swedes attribute the departure of the herrings from the neighbourhood of Gothenburg to the frequent firing of the British ships of war which were stationed there for convoys; and so great is the influence which fishermen have been accustomed to attribute to sound, that we are told in Chambers’s Picture of Scotland that the bell of St Monance in Fife, which was suspended from a tree in the churchyard, was removed every year during the herring season, lest the noise should scare the fish from the coast.
The mouth of the herring is furnished with a few teeth in the upper and lower jaws, and four rows in the tongue. These pointing inwards, enable it the more readily to secure and swallow its slippery prey, which chiefly consists of extremely minute animals, such as small medusæ, the Oniscus marinus, and small cancri and animalcula. The herrings on the coast of Norway sometimes feed upon a small red worm called the Roé-aal, which renders them unfit for curing; but there is probably no fish so indiscriminate in its food. The herring is often caught with flies, at which it leaps readily, and frequently with naked unbaited hooks. Mr Mitchell, in his article on the herring in the Quarterly Journal of Agriculture, mentions that in the stomachs of several herrings which he examined, he found numbers of young sand-eels, and he adds a very curious observation, namely, that in the stomachs of such herrings as had the milt or roe small and immature, the sand-eels were numerous; whereas in those which had the milt or roe full grown, there were none whatsoever; but he offers no suggestion to account for this remarkable circumstance. They also frequently feed on their own ova and young.