Common Herring

Clupea harengus Linnaeus

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The herring is beyond question the most important of food fishes in the Atlantic, if not in the world. Distributed as it is throughout the whole of the North Atlantic, it affords occupation for immense fleets of fishing boats, and according to an estimate made by Professor Huxley, the number taken every year out of the North Sea and Atlantic is at least 3,000,000,000, with a weight of at least 1,500,000,000 pounds. This estimate is probably too low. Carl Dambeck estimates the average yield of herring in Norway from 1850 to 1870 at 1,452,000,000 pounds, and the annual yield on the Swedish coast has been put at 300,000,000 pounds. In 1873 the catch on the Scotch coast was 188,000,000 pounds, which employed 45,494 men, using 15,095 boats. In the same period 15,331 boats were used in the English fisheries. If to these we add the yield on the coasts of Ireland, Germany, Belgium, France and America, the total is enormous. But 3,000,000,000 herring is probably no greater than the number contained in a single shoal, if it covers half a dozen square miles, and shoals of much greater size are on record. And, according to Professor Huxley, there must be scattered through the North Sea and the North Atlantic, at one and the same time, scores of shoals, any one of which would go a long way toward supplying the whole of man's consumption of herring.

The herring is found in the temperate and colder parts of the North Atlantic. On our coast it has been found as far south as Cape Hatteras, though it is not abundant south of New England. It rarely enters brackish water, but spawns in the sea. Unlike many other fishes, the herring, as well as other species of Clupeidae, are regarded as particularly delicious at spawning time, and most of the herring fisheries are carried on when the fish are in full roe. The herring fishery in America is entirely a shore fishery. With the exception of a few occasionally taken for bait by the line fishermen on the banks, our herring are all caught in the immediate vicinity of the shore. Although the herring fishery in America has never assumed the importance which it has long held in Europe, the herring is probably no less abundant here than on the other side of the Atlantic. The principal herring fisheries on our coast are north of Cape Cod, and Newfoundland is the most northern point where important fisheries are located. From the Bay of Fundy to Cape Cod, the fishing-ground is practically continuous.

The herring fisheries are carried on chiefly by means of brush weirs, gillnets, and torching. The latter method is the most primitive, and is saia to be effectual only after the weather has become cool. Formerly a birch-bark torch, now one of oil, was fixed to the bow of the boat, which is rapidly rowed through the water by several fishermen, while another with a large dip-net is stationed in the bow. The fish rise toward the light in numbers so long as the boat is kept moving rapidly, and large quantities are dipped into the boat. At other times the torch is used to lure the fish into the weirs, the light being then extinguished, and the operation repeated as often as necessary. Gillnets, however, are now the appliances chiefly in use in the herring fishery. They are set at some distance below the surface, and anchored at one or both ends. The quantities caught are very great, frequently sufficient to sink the buoys.

The food of the herring consists of small animal organisms, chiefly of two small crustaceans, viz.: copepods, or "red seed," and schizopod crustaceans, or the "shrimp" of the fishermen. Among the enemies of the herring which may be mentioned are the cod, haddock, pollock, hake, dogfish, albacore, squid, porpoises, seals and finback whales, each of which is very destructive.

As a food-fish the herring is of very great importance. It is utillized in many different ways. The great quantities brought to Gloucester, New York and elsewhere in winter from New-foundland are sold fresh. Those caught on the New England coast are smoked, salted or pickled, packed as sardines or used as bait chiefly in the cod fisheries. On the Maine coast the most important use is as sardines.

Head 4 1/2; depth 4 1/2; eye 4; D. 18; A. 17; scales 57; ventral scutes 28+13; vertebrae 56. Body elongate, compressed; scales loose; cheek longer than high; maxillary reaching middle of eye; upper jaw not emarginate, the lower jaw much projecting; vomer with a small ovate patch of small permanent teeth; palatine teeth small or absent; tongue with small teeth; gillrakers very long, fine and slender, about 40 on lower arm of first arch; eye longer than snout; abdomen serrated in front as well as behind, the serratures weak. Colour, bluish, silvery below, with bright reflections; peritoneum dusky.