side, the result being an adequate and well-divided supply of this fine fish in all our larger seas and rivers, as the herrings penetrated into every bay, and filled all our inland lochs from Wick to Yarmouth. Mr. Pennant was not contented with the development of this myth, but evidently felt constrained to give _éclat_ to his invention by inditing a few moral remarks just by way of a _tag_. “Were we,” he says, “inclined to consider this migration of the herring in a moral light, we might reflect with veneration and awe on the mighty power which originally impressed on this useful body of His creatures the instinct that directs and points out the course that blesses and enriches these islands, which causes them at certain and invariable times to quit the vast polar depths, and offer themselves to our expectant fleets. This impression was given them that they might remove for the sake of depositing their spawn in warmer seas, that would mature and vivify it more assuredly than those of the frigid zone. It is not from defect of food that they set themselves in motion, for they come to us full and fat, and on their return are almost universally observed to be lean and miserable.” Happily, the naturalists of the present day know a vast deal more of the natural history of the herring than Mr. Pennant ever knew, and, on the authority of the most able inquirers, it may be taken for granted that the herring is a local and not a migratory fish. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the herring is a native of our immediate seas, and can be caught all the year round on the coasts of the three kingdoms. The fishing begins at the island of Lewis, in the Hebrides, in the month of May, and goes on as the year advances, till in July it is being prosecuted off the coast of Caithness; while in autumn and winter we find large supplies of herrings at Yarmouth; and there is a winter fishery in the Firth of Forth: moreover, this fish is found in the south long before it ought to be there, if we were to believe in Pennant’s theory. It has been deduced, from a consideration of the figures of the annual takes of many years, that the herring exists in distinct races, which arrive at maturity month after month; and it is well known that the herrings taken at Wick in July are quite different from those caught at Dunbar in August or September: indeed I would go further and say that even at Wick each month has its changing shoal, and that as one race ripens for capture another disappears, having fulfilled its mission of procreation. It is certain that the herrings of these different seasons vary considerably in size and appearance; and it is very well known that the herrings of different localities are marked by distinctive features. Thus, the well-known Lochfyne herring is essentially different in its flavour from that of the Firth of Forth, and those taken in the Firth of Forth differ again in many particulars from those caught off Yarmouth.