I have no hesitation in stating my conviction that herring-fisheries established east and west of Vancouver Island, or at different points along the mainland coast, in the Straits of Juan de Fuca, or amidst the islands in the Gulf of Georgia, would turn out most remunerative speculations. It is true that herring-fishing has been tried, but only on the most limited scale. To make it pay; for that, after all, is the primary consideration; capital must be employed, and skilled hands to manage the drying, curing, and packing. Salt can be obtained in any quantities; wood in abundance, to make casks, build houses, boats, or ships; herrings within _millions_, requiring neither risk nor skill to catch. The rapidly-growing colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia offer ready markets for home consumption; China, Japan, the Sandwich Islands, and the entire coast southward from San Francisco to Mexico, afford facilities for disposing of almost any quantity of preserved fish. Those who undertake herring-fishing in North-western waters on a large scale, judiciously applying capital, skilled labour, and good management, will reap an ample harvest, and become the real ‘Herring Kings’ of the far North-west. VIVIPAROUS FISH.—We are so accustomed to associate the production of young fishes with eggs and milt, familiar to all as hard and soft roe in the cured herring, that it is difficult to believe in the existence of a fish bringing forth live young, just as do dogs, cats, rats, and mice—only with this difference, that, in the case of the fish, the young are perfect in every detail, when launched into the water, as the parent, and swim away self-dependent, to feed or be fed on, as good or ill-luck befals the little wanderer. The woodcut represents the female fish with the young _in situ_, together with others scattered round her, having fallen out when the walls of the abdomen were dissected open: the drawing was made from a female fish I brought from Vancouver Island, and now exhibiting in the Fish Room of the British Museum.