Mr. Cleghorn—of whom it is proper to state that while in business in Wick he suffered much local persecution for his views of the herring question—says that he believes the fluctuations in the capture to be caused by “overfishing,” as in the case of the salmon, the haddock, and other fish. The points brought forward by Mr. Cleghorn in order to prove his case were as follow:—1. That the herring is a native of waters in which it is found, and never migrates. 2. That distinct races of it exist at different places. 3. That twenty-seven years ago the extent of netting employed in the capture of the fish was much less than what is now used, while the quantity of herrings caught was, generally speaking, much greater. 4. There were fishing stations extant some years ago which are now exhausted; a steady increase having taken place in their produce up to a certain point, then violent fluctuations, and _then_ final extinction. 5. The races of herrings nearest our large cities have disappeared first; and in districts where the tides are rapid, as among islands and in lochs, where the fishing grounds are circumscribed, the fishings are precarious and brief; while on the other hand, extensive seabords having slack tides, with little accommodation for boats, are surer and of longer continuance as fishing stations. 6. From these premises it follows that the extinction of districts, and the fluctuations in the fisheries generally, are attributable to overfishing. In the commercial portion of this chapter I shall again have occasion to refer to Mr. Cleghorn’s investigations on the subject of the netting employed, but it occurred to me to state Mr. Cleghorn’s theory at this place, as it has been the key-note to much of the recent discussion on the subject of the natural history of the herring. Before the reading of Mr. Cleghorn’s statistics, the natural history of the herring was not well understood even by naturalists; so difficult is it to make observations in the laboratories of the sea. Only a few persons, till recently, were intimate with the history of this fish, and knew that, instead of being a migratory animal, as had been asserted by Anderson and Pennant, the herring was as local to particular coasts as the salmon to particular rivers.