716 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



"In this proposition, which, however, never became a law, the old idea is revived that the 

 lobster fisheries, properly speaking, belong to the land-owners, which, in spite of the decree of 

 1728, had formed the subject of discussion all through the last century. Even if this proposition 

 had become a law, it would not have exercised any great influence on the lobster fisheries, which 

 are almost exclusively carried on along unimproved coasts which cau scarcely ever be subjected 

 to cultivation. No new law regarding the protection of lobsters was introduced in the next 

 Storthing, but in 1845, when the Storthing had assembled, the department of finance and customs 

 received a letter from the agent of the English lobster company in Stavanger, that another English 

 company intended to continue the lobster fisheries, which, iu that district, usually cease toward 

 the end of June, during July, August, and September, hoping thereby to gain over the lobster 

 fisheries, and thus to destroy the trade of the other company. As this agent was afraid that 

 fishing during tbose months would ruin the lobster fisheries iu this district for several years to 

 come, he urged the department to introduce the royal proposition of a law in the Storthing, for- 

 bidding lobster fishing from June 15 to October 15. The department requested the governor to 

 give his opinion on the subject. He stated, as he had done on a former occasion, that such a law 

 would be unnecessary, as the lobster is not fit to eat during those summer months, and none could 

 therefore be exported. During this and the following years lobsters were, nevertheless, caught 

 and exported during those months, as the two companies vied with each other, each endeavoring 

 to secure the trade. The price of lobsters rose considerably, and all those that were caught were 

 bought up, even during the season when they spawn and shed their shell, although every one saw 

 what injury was being done, and although the mortality among the lobsters was great, and the 

 consequent loss considerable. All this soon bore its fruit, but few lobsters being caught in 

 1847 in those places where in 1845 fishing had been going on till the end of August, while the fish- 

 eries were productive in those places where they had ceased in July. All were now agreed that 

 it was injurious to catch lobsters during the season of the year when they spawn and shed their 

 shell, which, in the districts in question, was supposed to take place in August and September, 

 and it became evident that such continued fishing would in a short time drive the lobsters 

 entirely from the coast. To prevent such a misfortune the governor at last resolved to request 

 the department to issue a provisional regulation, forbidding lobster fishing during the months 

 of August and September. The department, however, again considered it necessary to get 

 reports from the lobster districts and from the agents of the English lobster companies. Some 

 of these reports declared that lobster fishing should be forbidden from the middle of July till the 

 middle of October; others that there should be no fishing during August and September. The 

 agent of an English lobster company in Jarlsberg and Laurvig, however, advised against any pro- 

 hibition of the lobster fisheries, saying that such a prohibition during the summer months would 

 cause the English lobster companies to stop this trade, ice hindering the fisheries in winter 

 and spring, and storms those in the latter part of autumn, so that the fisheries commenced gradu- 

 ally in May and lasted till the end of September. They are most productive iu July, August, and 

 September. The decrease of the lobster fisheries he ascribed not to the summer fisheries, which were 

 said to diminish the number of lobsters, but to the circumstance that the people of the district devote 

 their attention more to the profitable mackerel fisheries. The governor was of the same opinion. 

 A totally different opinion, however, was entertained by other competent and trustworthy persons in 

 Laurvig and the neighborhood, who, from information obtained by the lobster fishers of that district, 

 judged that such a prohibition of fishing from the middle of July till the middle or end of September 

 would have a favorable influence on the preservation of the lobsters. The governor of the Lister 

 and Mandal districts showed in his report, by examples from the years of war, that the more the lob- 



