The late Mr. J. M. Mitchell, the Belgian Consul at Leith (who published a work on the _National Importance of the Herring_), in a paper which he read before the British Association at Oxford, three years ago, settled with much care and very effectually the geographical part of the herring question. His idea also is that the herring is a native of the coast on which it is found, and that immediately after spawning the full-sized herrings make at once for the deep waters of their own neighbourhood, where they feed till the spawning season again induces them to seek the shallow water. Mr. Mitchell gives his reasons, and states that the herrings resorting to the various localities have marked differences in size, shape, or quality; those of each particular coast having a distinct and specific character which cannot be mistaken; and so well determined are those particulars that practical men, on seeing the herrings, can at once pronounce the locality from whence they come; as, indeed, is the case with salmon, turbot, and many other fishes and crustaceans. On the southern coast of Greenland the herring is a rare fish; and, according to Crantz, only a small variety is found on the northern shore, nor has it been observed in any number in the proper icy seas—as it would undoubtedly have been had it resorted thither in such innumerable quantities as was imagined by the naturalists of the last century. Another proof that the herring is local to the coasts of Britain lies in the fact of the different varieties brought to our own markets. As expert fishers know the salmon of particular rivers, so do some men know the different localities of our herring from merely glancing at the fish. A Lochfyne fish differs in appearance from a herring taken off the coast of Caithness, while the latter again differs from those taken by the Dunbar boats off the Isle of May. Experienced fishmongers know the different localities of the same kinds of fish as easily as a farmer will separate a Cheviot sheep from a Southdown. Thus they can at once distinguish a Severn salmon from one caught in the Tweed or the Spey, and they can tell at a glance a Lochfyne _matie_ from a Firth of Forth one.