THE NORWEGIAN HERRING-FISHERIES. 119 



meshes, but that only the front portion entered, so that the fish died at 

 last in endeavoring to push through the meshes, as it never moves back- 

 ward. When the net is hauled in, these larger herring fall off and re- 

 main at the bottom of the sea. He had several times examined such 

 places after the fishing was over, but had never found any large quan- 

 tity of dead herring at the bottom, even when he used the dredge after 

 particularly rich fishing-seasons. With the water-telescope he could 

 not penetrate to such a depth, but he thinks that the account of great 

 masses of herring lying there is very much exaggerated. On another 

 occasion he saw a large quantity of dead herring lying at the bottom of 

 the sea, but he felt convinced that this could not possibly influence the 

 fisheries, and experience has shown that he was right. When the cur- 

 rent is very violent, nets set in exposed places will be driven together 

 and become entangled, so that it is impossible to separate them. He 

 thus witnessed at Bjorkevser the sinking of such a mass of entangled 

 nets which had been cut off from the buoys, in order to save something. 

 It was important for him to examine the place where this was done, and 

 he went there about two months after this occurrence. The nets were 

 then so much decayed that only small pieces could be recovered, whilo 

 of the herring only bones and gristly parts were found. But the frag- 

 ments of the nets and herring were everywhere covered with carrion- 

 eating animals, which had gathered in great numbers. Many other ani- 

 mals were also found. When, later in the same year, he requested some 

 one to procure for him specimens of some of these animals, it was dis- 

 covered that there was not a trace left of nets, herring, or animals ; so 

 that about four months after the close of the fisheries the bottom was 

 quite clean again. 



It is, therefore, evident that dead herring could not make the bottom 

 so impure that a year after it should be unfit for the herring to spawn 

 in ; and experience has also shown that this is not the case. On the 

 other hand, reports from Sweden, Scotland, and other countries, affirm 

 that seines may be very detrimental to the fisheries, by leaving a great 

 many dead herring at the bottom, and many instances of this are men- 

 tioned, such as the well-known fishery near Golten, where, after a great 

 many herring had died during one night, the fisheries were never again 

 successful. Boeck also discovered, several times after seine-fishing, by 

 examining the bottom with the water-telescope, a considerable number 

 of dead herring ; but he thinks that the injurious influence is very much 

 exaggerated. Where seine-fishing is carried on in open places the cur- 

 rent, sea-animals, &c, will very soon purify the bottom, and only where 

 very large masses of fish have died in deep and narrow inlets will some 

 remains be found the following year. The cause of the herring not re- 

 turning to such places might rather be occasioned by its irregular habits 

 than by dead fish. In order to adduce more substantial proof of this 

 he caused, according to the government inspector's account, to be marked 

 on a map all those places where seine-fishing had been carried on since 

 1853, and he found that in some there had been considerable seine-fish- 



