Fishermen distinguish four states of the herring. Fry or sile, when not larger than sprats; maties, when larger than this, with undeveloped roe or milt; full fish, with largely developed roe or milt; and spent or shotten fish, which have recently spawned.
Herring-fry of the size of sprats are distinguished from full fish not merely by their size, but, in addition, by the very slight development of the milt or roe, and by the accumulation of fat in the abdominal cavity. Bands of fat are found in the mesentery alongside the intestine, and filling up the interspaces between the pyloric cæca.
Maties (the name[1] of which is a corruption of the Dutch word for a maiden) resemble the fry in these particulars; but, if they are well fed, the deposit of fatty and other nutritive matter takes place, not only about the abdominal viscera, but also beneath the skin and in the interstices of the flesh. Indeed, when nourishment is abundant, this infiltration of the flesh with fat may go so far that the fish can not readily be preserved and must be eaten fresh. The singularly delicate Loch Fyne herrings are in this condition early in the season. When the small crustaceans, on which the maties chiefly feed, are extremely abundant the fish gorge themselves with them to such an extent that the conical crop becomes completely distended, and the Scotch fisherermen give them the name of "gut-pock" herrings, as much as to say pouch-gutted fish, and an absurd notion is current that these herrings are diseased. However, the "gut-pock" herrings differ from the rest only in having their pouch full instead of empty, as it commonly is.
As the fish passes from the matie to the full condition, the milt and roe begin to grow at the expense of the nutriment thus stored up; and, as these organs become larger and occupy more and more space in the abdominal cavity, the excess of nutritious substance is transferred to them. The fatty deposit about the intestine and pyloric cæca gradually disappears and the flesh becomes poorer. It would appear that by degrees the fish cease to feed at all. At any rate, there is usually no food in the stomach of a herring which approaches maturity. In all these respects there is the closest resemblance between the history of the herring and that of other fishes such as the salmon—the parr corresponding to the herring-fry or sile, the grilse and the "clean fish" of larger size to the maties.
At length spawning takes place, the accumulated nutrition, transformed into eggs or spermatic fluid, is expelled, and the fish is left in
- ↑ "Halecum intestina, non modo multa gaudere obesitate, sed et totum corpus eo adeo esse impletum ut aliquando, cum discinditur, pinguedo ex cultro defluat, et præsertim eo quidem tempore ubi halecum lactes aut ova crescere primum incipiunt, unde nostrates eos Maatgems-Haringen dicere solent."—A. v. Leeuwenhoek, "Arcana Naturæ," Ep. xcvii (1696).Leeuwenhoek also mentions having heard of "gut-pock" herrings from Scotch fishermen.
full herrings ready to spawn, only 100-110 millimetres (four to four and a half inches) long, as observed by himself.
