16 



The ''Aalesfacler" — whether now they consist of rows of eeltraps only, 

 or of eel-traps with a "Gaard'' inside, or of an "Aalegaard" only — ahvays go 

 in then as far as tho eel goes; unless the fisheriuau in question has no right 

 to drive his stakes so near land, and therefore must remain at a respeetful 

 distance; or unless the "Stader" rest on a rising in the bottom of the sea, 

 which does not go in to the shore. In both these cases the traps become loose 

 traps, i. e. traps which do not reach land. 



These traps, which do not reach land, or go in to the inner border of the 

 sostera, are cailed "loose traps" in this list. 



Though it seems difficult, according to the above, to draw any natural 

 boundary-line between eel-traps, rows of eeltraps, and "Aalegaarde", I have 

 in this list, from practical reasous, cailed everything that has a bridge "Aale- 

 gaard'', everything else eel-ti-ap. To avoid all misunderstanding it is ernjjlia- 

 sised here that, in this treatise, is imderstood by 

 ''Aalegaard", everything that has a bridge, on which you may go or creep out, 



in order to tend the traps from it; 

 JEel-trap, everything else, though only the narrow lath across the water, which 



forms the bridge, is missing. 

 Loose traps are traps which do not go so close in to land as the sostera, or so 



close as it will pay to set traps. 

 An "Aalestade" is a connected series of traps, set anyway you like, no matter 



whether the inmost traps are to be tended from a bridge ("Aalegaard") 



or not. _ 



An "Aalestade" may thus consist as well of an "Aalegaard" (near the shore) 

 as also of a series of traps in the continuation of this. Such seems to be the 

 ordinary usage among the fishermen; they more rarely speak of an "Aale- 

 stade"' as the place where traps or "Gaarde" may be set, but they speak of 

 caiTying the whole "Stade" to land, etc. — quite analogous to shrimp-trap 

 "Stader", which have no such fixed piaces at all. — 



Tlie list has been made up, chiedy, by navigating the shores in the 

 „Sallingsund', at tlie times when the eelfisher}' is carried on, and then from the 

 vesse], in telescope, counting and mapping out all the traps. The bridge is 

 here very conspicuous, among otlier things on account of tlie traps which 

 are hauled up on it in daytime. 



In the Sound, where the traps are placed by buoys, it has been impos- 

 sible to count them from a vessel, but Hans Vli ristensen, the fisherman, who 

 is master of the "Sallingsund", has travelied all over the shores, and, jiartly 

 tlirough personal observation, partly by mcans of information obtaincd from 



