hatching? Is this the story of the parr over again, or is it the case that the fishermen had found a shoal of mixed herrings—some being of one year’s spawning, some of another? I confess to being puzzled, and may again remind the reader that my largest fish had never spawned, and had not the faintest trace of milt or roe within it. Then, again, as to the time when herrings spawn, I have over and over again asserted in various quarters that they spawn in nearly every month of the year—an assertion, as I have just shown, which has been proved by the recent inquiry. As to the place of spawning, development of the ova, and other circumstances attendant on the increase of the herring, I promulgated the following opinions some years ago, and I see no reason to alter them:—The herring shoal keeps well together till the time of spawning, whatever the fish may do after that event. Some naturalists think that the shoal breaks up after it spawns, and that the herring then live an individual life, till again instinctively moved together for the grand purpose of procreating their kind. It is quite clear, I think, that the herring moves into the shallow water because of its increased temperature, and its being more fitted in consequence for the speedy vivifying of the spawn. The same shoal will always gather over the same spawning ground, and the fish will keep their position till they fulfil the grand object of their life. The herrings will rise buoyantly to the top water after they have spawned; before that they swim deep and hug the ground. The herring, in my opinion, must have a rocky place to spawn upon, with a vegetable growth of some kind to receive the roe; shoals may of course accidentally spawn on soft ground. It is not accurately known how long a period elapses till the spawn ripens into life. I think, however, that herring spawn requires a period of about six weeks to ripen. It is known that young herrings have appeared on a spawning ground in myriads within fifty days after the departure of a shoal, and fishermen say that no spawn can be found on the ground after the lapse of a few weeks from the visit of the gravid shoal—that the eggs in fact have come to life, and that the fish are swimming about; and some fishermen assert that the little whitebait is the herring in its first stage.