The herring propels itself through the water by rapidly moving the tail from side to side, the other fins being employed in steadying and probably aiding its movement, and it is this rapid waving of the tail which causes the rippling or pattering sound which announces the presence of a shoal when swimming near the surface. On a calm night their course may be traced by a brilliant phosphorescent light, which illuminates the surface of the water, and is emitted partly from the fish themselves, and partly from the minute marine animals with which the ocean swarms.
Sometimes herrings do not approach the surface, and fine healthy shoals are often apt to swim deep; hence fishermen, through their ignorance in trusting too much to appearances, are frequently misled, they being apt to suppose that when they see no gulls or large fishes of prey exhibiting their gluttonous gambols, there are no herrings present, whilst the finest and choicest may be at the moment in millions beneath them; in fact, those which swim near the surface are usually the young, the gorged, and the sickly. Mr Mitchell informs us that several experienced masters of Dutch herring busses assured him that the only appearances they ever sought for were the colour of the sea, which should be a dark green, and its consistence apparently muddy. There is an additional fact worthy of observation, which is, that in clear dry weather the fish keep down at the bottom, and do not ascend until the moon rises.
The migration of the herring has been long a disputed point, and from the difficulties to which we have alluded in the commencement of this article, of observing minutely or accurately the movements or nature of fishes, it is likely to remain unsettled much longer. The old and long received opinion has been, that the winter habitation of the herring is under the vast fields of ice which surround the North Pole within the Arctic Circle; that they there deposit their spawn and advance southwards with the opening year, making their appearance off the Zetland islands about the month of April, and coming upon the coasts of Ireland and Scotland in June. Off Thurso they are sometimes taken as early as May, but June, July, and August, are the months in which the fishing is most actively commenced off the west Highlands of Scotland. Off the east coast of Ireland, near Arklow, the fishery used to commence in June, but latterly it has been postponed till October. The fluctuations in the time of commencing the herring fishery at various places, and the fact of a winter fishery being successfully carried on in some parts—as for instance at Killybegs, where they are taken from December till March, and along the whole coast of Ireland south of Galway Bay, where there are sufficient indications that the fishery might be successfully carried on the whole year—have at length caused the hitherto received opinion of their migration from the Arctic Circle to be questioned, and Mr Mitchell has given many sound arguments in refutation of it. He divides the theories upon the subject into three:—first, that the herrings come from the North Pole in great shoals of many leagues in extent, dividing into lesser shoals on coming towards the north point of Scotland; second, that they do not come from the Arctic regions, but from a less northerly direction, still, however, very far north of Shetland; and, third, that they are spawned on the coasts near which they are caught, and are consequently natives; that after spawning, they retire out to sea, and continue so until their spawning season comes round again, when they return to their accustomed shore. The latter he considers to be the most reasonable theory, and adduces in support of it the well-known fact that the herrings at every fishing station are of a peculiar quality uniformly the same, and always different from those at other even very nearly adjoining stations; and so well has this fact been established, that practical men can at once pronounce from the size, appearance, and quality of the fish, where it was taken. For example, the herrings taken off the coast of Stadtland in Norway are almost twice the size of those taken near Shetland, and these are twice the size of those caught near Thurso, whilst the Dublin Bay herrings have long been famous for their superior flavour, which is unmatched by those of any other bay or harbour. Again, a size of herrings similar to those of Yarmouth visited till lately the coast of Lumfiord in Denmark, whilst on the Mecklenburg coast higher up the Baltic, the herrings are one-third larger than those of Lumfiord; and proceeding up the Baltic above Mecklenburg to the Pomeranian and part of the Prussian coasts, they are fully one-third smaller; and again still farther up they are larger. In quality and condition they differ as much as in size, those off the coast of Holland being so inferior as not to be worth pickling, and the Dutch fishermen consequently seek the coasts of Scotland and England.
As to the time of appearance at the several fishing stations, their irregularity goes far to prove their constant propinquity, the take commencing at some of the more southern stations before the northern ones; whereas, if they migrated regularly from the north, it is evident that the fishing should commence at the various stations in regular order, from the most northern where the shoals would first make their appearance, to the next, and so on to the most southward, which should be deserted by them at some certain season, in order that they might return.
But there is no well-authenticated instance of those prodigious shoals of herrings having been met with approaching the south in any high northern latitude; and so far from their abounding in the Arctic regions, none have been found in the Greenland seas, nor have any been discovered in the stomachs of the whales killed there. Egede, who resided in Greenland for fifteen years, and compiled the natural history of it, after enumerating the fishes, adds, “No herrings are to be seen;” whilst on the contrary, the whales which feed principally on herrings, frequent our own coasts. These arguments appear to be fatal to the theory of the Arctic migration, and to support most powerfully that of the mere retirement of the herring to the deep. But Mr Mitchell goes farther, and asserts, upon the evidence of the celebrated naturalists Bloch and Lacepede, that “fishes of a similar size even in fresh water cannot go above half a mile a-day, and that therefore herrings could not make, even from spring to autumn, the long voyage attributed to them.” Now, this appears to be going too far, and we would prefer that the argument should rest on the former grounds, excluding this, which seems to be a weak assertion, founded upon the observation that fishes do not proceed far from their haunts, whilst the fact is, that they merely move about in search of food; but who that has seen the rapid movement of a trout, or of the very fish we are treating of, could for a moment entertain the idea of their progress being confined to a rate that the crawling snail might equal? Mr Mitchell himself mentions a fact that alone is sufficient to rebut such an assertion, namely, that shortly after the union between England and Scotland, an immense shoal of herrings ran ashore near Cromarty, and covered the beach to the depth of several feet; and he adds, “Strange to say, however, the shoal left the Frith in a single night, and no shoals made their appearance again for more than half a century.”
Now, if they could make but half a mile a-day, how could they have returned several miles in a single night? But this argument was unnecessary, and it would be well for many persons to know that an ill-sustained argument is not merely a bad prop to a cause, but a wedge inserted for the advantage of an adversary, placed ready for his use in overturning it.
But the most powerful argument against the theory of migration seems to have escaped Mr Mitchell’s observation; it is—that the herrings do not retire to spawn, as was asserted, but actually spawn near the fishing stations, and retire after it. Their spawn is taken up in abundance, and the nets are always found to contain large quantities of it, whilst the assertion that no young herrings are found near our shores, is altogether absurd, the contrary being the fact. The fecundated roe has the power, after having been deposited, of attaching itself firmly to the stones, rocks, or sea-weed, and in about three weeks after deposition, the young fry come forth from the eggs, and are seen in millions near the shore; in six or seven weeks they are about three inches in length, and arrive at maturity in about eighteen months.
Lacepede tells that in North America the inhabitants carry the herring-spawn from the spawning ground to the mouths of rivers and other places not before frequented by the fish, and those places become forthwith regular resorts for them; and the same authority mentions the fact of a similar custom in Sweden.
Thus the theory of the herring being a native of the place which it is accustomed to frequent annually, seems to be satisfactorily established; and having thus presented our readers with such information upon the subject of the natural history of the herring as our space permits, we shall close this article, reserving some account of the various modes of fishing and methods of curing, for another paper.
N.