NORWEGIAN LOBSTER-FISHERY AND ITS HISTORY. 249 



the royal proposition of a law in the Storthing, forbidding lobster-fish- 

 ing from June 15 to October 15. The department requested the gov- 

 ernor 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 months, and none could therefore be ex- 

 ported. 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 aud 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 consid- 

 erable. All this soon bore its fruit, but few lobsters being caught in 

 1847 in those places where in 1815 fishing had been going on till the 

 end of August, while the fisheries 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 con- 

 tinued 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 mouths of August and September. The de- 

 partment, however, again considered it necessary to get reports from 

 the lobster-districts and from the agents of the English lobster-compa- 

 nies. Some of these reports declared that lobster-fishing should be for- 

 bidden 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, ad- 

 vised against any prohibition of the lobster-fisheries, saying that such 

 a prohibition during the summer months would cause the English lob- 

 ster-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 gradually in May and lasted till the end of Septem- 

 ber. They are most productive in 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 circum- 

 stance 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 infor- 

 mation obtained of 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 Maudal districts showed iu 

 his report by examples from the years of war, that the more the lob- 



