The herring breeds, then, and is caught in greater or lesser quantities, during every month of the year. There is no general close-time for the herring in Scotland. On one or two parts of the west coast it has hitherto been illegal to capture this fish at certain seasons, although the restrictions are not general. How is it that the time selected by fishermen for the capture of this fish corresponds with the period when it is a crime to take a salmon? If a gravid salmon be unwholesome, is a gravid herring good for food? Do not the same physical laws affect both of these fish? There cannot be a doubt but that at the period of spawning, this fish, as well as all other fish, is in its worst condition so far as its food-yielding qualities are concerned, because at that time of its life its whole nutritive power is exerted on behalf of its seed, and its flesh is consequently lean and unpalatable. Yet it is a great fact that the time which the herring selects in order to fulfil the grandest instinct of its nature is the very time appointed by man for its capture! In fact, that is the period when herrings are at a premium; they must be “full fish,” or they cannot obtain the official brand; in other words, _shotten_ herrings—_i.e._ fish that have spawned—are not of much more than half the value of the others. When it is taken into account that each pair of full fish (male and female) are killed just as they are about to give us the chance of obtaining an increase of the stock to the extent say of thirty thousand, the ultimate effect must be to disturb and cripple the producing powers of the shoal to such a degree that it will break up and find a new breeding-ground, safe for a time perhaps from the spoliation of the greedy fishermen. The Lochfyne commissioners give as a reason for their non-recommendation of a close-time the fact, that were there to be a cessation from labour, the enemies of the herring would so increase, that the jubilee given would be nugatory. But surely there is a great want of logic in this argument! How is it that a close-time operates so favourably in the case of the salmon—not only a seasonal close-time, but a weekly one as well? Would not the herring, with its almost miraculous breeding-power, increase in the same ratio, or even in a greater ratio than its enemies, especially if, as the commissioners tell us and we believe, it is engaged in multiplying its kind during ten months of the year? Are not the enemies of the herring at work during the fishing season as well as at other periods? I could understand the logic of denying a close-time on the ground that, as the herring never ceases breeding, it is impossible to fix a correct period. But, according to the deliverance made by the commissioners in the natural history portion of their inquiry, a close-time is quite possible. I have ever been of opinion, notwithstanding the practical difficulties that would have to be encountered in carrying it out, that