152 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



ring, and if it is done, it is only for home-consumption or when the her- 

 ring are so plentiful that the market is overstocked with fresh fish. 

 Even the fresh sea-herring brings so good a price that salting, for which 

 it is otherwise well suited, does not pay, and has therefore been done 

 only with small quantities. It is well adapted for smoking, although, 

 of course, but very few have been thus prepared. 



V. — THE SMALL -HERRING- FISHERIES, THEIR TIME AND PLACE. 



The autumn and winter fisheries. — Not many small-herring are caught 

 on the southern coast, and these during the autumn are mostly mixed 

 with the sea-herring, while but few small-herring are found among the 

 sea-herring when these are caught later in the season. 



On the central coast, near Marstrand and south of Tjorn, good-sized 

 and fat small-herring were caught all through the autumn from October, 

 and these were almost entirely free from sea- herring, which but seldom 

 occurs on this coast; and some small-herring were caught later among 

 the sea- herring. Near Oxevik, at Brofjord, not far from Northern 

 Grundsund, as well as in many other places, fine and unmixed small- 

 herring have been caught during the entire autumn from October till 

 Christmas, when the fisheries ceased, and most of the nets were taken 

 to pieces. The same was also the case near Huunebo Strand, and in 

 the Battnafjord, where the small-herring fisheries are not very im- 

 portant. 



On the Fjellbacka coast, the fisheries commenced in October and con- 

 tinued, with brief interruptions, till the end of the year, and the fish 

 caught were nearly all fine specimens and not mixed with other herring; 

 but in other years, it has happened that the fisheries commenced even as 

 early as September, and the small-herring were, on an average, of a less size. 

 The largest number caught at a single haul was about five hundred 

 bushels. By witnessing and examing numerous hauls, I conviuced my- 

 self that the fish were not at all mixed with young small-herring or sea- 

 herring. In a haul of from twenty-five to fifty bushels, scarcely a score 

 of sea-herring could be found, and small-herring, measuring less than 

 100 millimeters, could not be found at all. Some sea-herring are said 

 to have been found in the beginning of the fisheries, and toward the end 

 of the year they became more frequent. During the sea-herring fish- 

 eries, more or less small-herring were caught, occasionally in such num- 

 bers that it paid to pick them out and pickle them. 



On the Stromstad coast, the small-herring fisheries commenced in 

 October and continued in very inconsiderable hauls till Christmas, when 

 the small-herring became more or less mixed with the sea-herring, 

 although even then an occasional haul was found to be entirely unmixed. 

 The month of January yields the largest quantity of small-herring on 

 this coast, although last year this was not the case. 



In the Siicke Bay, the small-herring fishery proved almost an entire 

 failure ; but near the Hval Islands, Norwegian fishermen caught small- 



