248 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



able to understand its utility, would thereby only be encouraged to fol- 

 low the dictates of selfishness aud trausgress the law. It was, moreover, 

 thought that it would be difficult to exercise any sufficient control, and 

 that the trade would be injured thereby. The law was therefore not 

 passed. This was the fourth time that a moderate proposition had 

 been made to protect the lobster in order to avoid the total ruin of the 

 fisheries. In the first proposal, by Judge Lorn, it had been suggested 

 that the lobster should be protected at certain seasons of the year, when 

 it spawns or sheds its shell, and likewise that those lobsters should be 

 protected that had not reached a certain length. In the second, by Mr. 

 Gjertsen, only a certain annual season of protection was suggested ; as 

 was also done in the third, by Mr. Lundsgaard. The fourth, or govern- 

 ment proposal, only suggested that lobsters below a certain size should 

 not be caught. 



It was not long before there were again numerous complaints of the 

 decrease in the number of lobsters, which, according to the testimony of 

 impartial men, was owing to lobsters being caught at a time when they 

 spawn and shed their shell. Before auythiug further was done in the 

 matter, a fishery-commission that had been appointed made a proposal 

 regarding the lobster-fisheries, which must be mentioned here. In 1840, 

 the government appointed a commission to revise the fishery-laws. The 

 following were members of this commission: Judge Landmark, Consul 

 Meltzer, Messrs. Tan gen and Moses, merchants, liev. (now Professor) 

 Sars, aud Chief Pilot Monsen. One passage of the law proposed by 

 this commission reads as follows : " On their own property, as far as ten 

 fathoms from the coast at low water, the owners shall have the exclusive 

 privilege to catch all small fish, lobsters, aud oysters, but any one may 

 catch lobsters outside of unimproved land bounding the sea without 

 regard to the distance from the coast." 



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 sub- 

 ject 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 can 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 de- 

 partment of finance and customs received a letter from the agent of 

 the English lobster-company in Stavanger that another English com- 

 pany intended to continue the lobster-fisheries, which, in that district, 

 usually cease toward the end of June, during July, August, and Sep- 

 tember, 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 these mouths would ruin the lobster-fisheries in this dis- 

 trict for several years to come, he urged the department to iutroduce 



