HERRING-FISHERIES ON THE COAST OF SWEDEN. 157 



Small herring are, so far as I am aware, caught with these nets by 

 one fisherman only on*the coast of Bohusliin. 



Drag-nets. — At the expense of a Goteborg merchant, Aron Anderson, 

 experiments have been made with such nets which were brought from 

 Blekiuge, Skane, and Norway, aud taken out by a mackerel-boat from 

 Koster. ; but these experiment have, I believe, been unsuccessful. 



Purse-nets are used in some portions of Norway for catching herring 

 and small-herring. 1 In Sweden, they are, as far as I am aware, only 

 used near Stromstad, where they have been in use for a long time for 

 catching salmon, and occasionally during May and June for catching 

 small -herring. 



Other fishing-implements are but rarely employed in catching her- 

 ring. 



As it has been stated that the large nets now in use in Bohuslan 

 have much finer meshes than those used thirty or forty years ago, 2 

 and that the nets used during the great fishing-periods have meshes 

 measuring from 1 to 1^ inches ; 3 aud as this is of great importance in 

 answering the question how a suitable net should be constructed, I deem 

 it necessary to adduce some additional facts which I have gathered. 



As to the nets used during the latter part of the last great fishing- 

 period, it is well known that these generally, at least on the southern 

 coast aud the southern portion of the central coast, had sixteen meshes 

 to the yard : i but at the beginning of this fishing-period, the fisheries 

 are said to have been carried on with mackerel-nets having wider meshes, 5 

 according to information received during the year 1833, by the investi- 

 gating committee, from the northern coast. As there is, however, no 

 detailed iuformatipu regarding this matter, it is impossible to obtain an 

 accurate idea of the size of the meshes of these mackerel-nets. This 

 much only is certain, that these nets, on account of the great size of 

 their meshes, were considered useless iu fishing for the large herring, 

 (although they were not mixed with other herring) ; 6 that ma«kerel-nets 

 with meshes measuring more than one inch are unknown in Bohus- 

 liin ; that catching fine and fat mackerel presupposes meshes narrower 

 than these; and that these nets, both during the old fishing-period and 

 in later time, have had narrower meshes, at least in the southern por- 

 tion of the central coast, where they are continually used for catching 

 bait and other small fish. 7 Even in the neighboring portions of Nor- 

 way, there are no mackerel-nets in use whose meshes measure more than 



1 Basch and Berg, Memorial and Petition, p. 34. 

 . s New Report on the Herring-Fisheries, pp. 24, 66. 



3 New Report on the Herring-Fisheries, pp. 24, 63, 66. 



*Ekstrom, Practical Essay, p. 20, note 2. Dubb, Reports of the Royal Academy of 

 Sciences for 1817, p. 36. 



6 Report on the Herring-Fisheries, pp. 86 fr. 9, p. 98 fr. 7. Nilsson, Reports on the 

 Herring-Fisheries, p. 12. 



6 Nilson, Reports on the Herring-Fisheries, p. 63. 



7 Act Concerning Blubber-Refineries, pp. 73, 77, 79-81. Ekstrom, Practical Essay, p. 110. 



