Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1880-02-18
The Herring.

The herring, though a small fish, is COM
mercially attractive enough to often find its
own prospects of peace and longevity ser:-
Ously endangered. Its diminutive size
causes il to suffer more from finny enemies
than either the cod or the mackorel. and
its spawning capacity is comparatively fee
ble-a mere tritie of thirty thousand eggs,
which the mackerel exceeds by fifteen or
twenty times, and the cod by hundred or
more. And yet there seems no limit TO the
quantity of herring. Were the demand
many times as great as it is, it could easily
be supplied from this side Of the ocean.
This is doubtless due in great measure to
the peculiar security enjoyed by the spawn
and the young. Instead of floating. orifice
downward, like the eggs of most other fish,
herring spawn sinks to the bottom, the ORR
fees OF the egg being upward, and as it is
deposited in deep water, there are but few
fish that interfere with it. The young.
finding no loving parent near to guide their
youthful steps, sensibly remain close to
their birthplace, feeding upon dlatoms and
smaller crustacea, until they grow old
enough to venture abroad. Migratory only
TO limited extent, il is probable that the
herring changes its base only on account of
annoyance from larger fish. They are
caught inshOre by many varieties of seines
and pounds, and the hook has occasionally
been tried upon them by self-sufficient city
youths, urged thereto by the sea ahore
boys, who wished TO remove the conceit
from their visitors. To attempt to lure
with hook and line fish which cannot bite,
hut lit-ao yt-hnllr- h,-c o,,l a
long hours at the attempt, under the stimu-
lus of some wonderful story about how
many some other city youth caught ia the
same way, Is very stimulative of ones
memory of the imprecatory psalms and of
other Scripture as misquoted by the wicked
The herring, like the other fish named, in
habits cold water, the line of Long Island
sound being the southern boundary, while
it is far to the north that it must be sought
in quantity. The secret of the selection of
particular localities for FISH homes seems
explained by an examination of the course
of the great arctic current. This body Of
cold water, starting from the Spitzbergen
seas, flows westerly until it strikes the
Greenland coast, when it changes its course
to the southwark, and carries great masses
of cold water into localities the latitude of
which leads one to look for high temper
a;ure in the water. 1t is branch of this
current that enables the cod to live and
multiply about Block Island and Nantucket
Shoals, in water at 10 deg, while further
north bathers luxuriate in water at 20 deg.
The same current forces its way into the
Gulf of st. Lawrence, which is the most
profitable fishing ground in the world. and
probably has something to do with the phe
nomenal tides of the Bay of Fundy. This
current brings not only cold water, but food
for the fish. This food consists of diatoms
and other minute forms OF vegetable and
animal life. Coming into existence in a
latitude higher than that of the fish that
devour it, this food IS swept southwark by
the great arctic current, and wherever it is
found the waters are almost alive with fish.
Professor Hind says that although the sea
off Canada aud the United States appears
abundant in life, it is nevertheless almost a
desert compared with the north seas, par
ticularly on the Labrador and Greenland
coasts There the ocean at times seems to
be thick with fish and to such an extent
that during a single night the temperature
of the water will be materially influenced
by animal life.