The principle of fish life which brings the male and female together at the period of spawning is unknown. It is supposed by some naturalists that fish do not gather into shoals till they are about to perform the grandest action of their nature, and that till that period each animal lives a separate and individual life. If we set down the sense of smell as the power which attracts the fish sexes, we shall be very nearly correct: such cold-blooded animals cannot very well have any more powerful instinct. A very clever Spanish writer on pisciculture hints that the fish have no amatory feeling for each other at that period, thus forming a curious exception to most other animals, and that it is the smell of the roe in the female that attracts the male. As the writer well expresses it—“The curious phenomenon of the fecundation of the eggs or spawn of the female fish away from the bowels of the mothers, and independent of their co-operation in every way, constitutes an interesting exception to the almost universal law of instinct and sympathy in the sexes—a law simple in its essence, as are all nature’s laws, but most prolific in its results; for we see it pass through all the phases of an immense series, from the phenomena of organic attraction shown by the first-named living beings up to the great passions of love and maternity in the human species, forming the affectionate and solid bases of families and the imperishable foundation of society.” This idea—viz. as to the shoaling of the fish at the period of spawning only—has been prominently thrown out in regard to the herring by parties who do not admit even of a partial migration from the deep to the shallow water, which, however, is an idea that is stoutly held by some writers on the herring question. It is rather interesting, however, in connection with this phase of fish life, to note that particular shoals of herrings deposit their spawn at particular places, that the eggs come simultaneously to life, and that it is quite certain that the young fish remain together for a considerable period—a few months at least—after they are hatched. This is well known from the fact of large bodies of young herrings having been caught during the sprat season; these could not, of course, have been assembled to spawn—they were too young and had no development of milt or roe. This, if these fish separate, gives rise to the question—At what period do the herrings begin their individual wanderings? Sprats, of course—if sprats be sprats and not the young of the herring—may have come together at the period when they are so largely captured for the purpose of perpetuating their kind; but if so, they must live long together before they acquire milt or roe. And how is it that we so often find young herrings in the sprat shoals? Then, again, how comes it that the fishermen do not frequently fall in with the separate herrings during the white-fishing seasons? How is it that