22 



goiiig the opposite way. Somethiiig isimilar to this, is not unknown at other 

 piaces, certainly, but it does uot directly coucern tlie migration of tlie silver 

 eel. Not a few silver eels come out of the Limfjord, nortlnvard bound, but 

 on the shores of the Cattegat there are but few traps. As far nortli as 

 Hou and in Asaa Rende there are a few, aud likewise south of Frederiks- 

 havn; but this fishery is altogether so insignificant that there is scarcely 

 any reason to doubt that the eels are quite local; it is certainly not the 

 migration of the eels from the Belts which is continued up here. As soon 

 as Sletterhage, Refsnæs, aud Elsinore are passed, the large multitudes of 

 eels disappear. 



While thus our eel-trap fisheries everywhere in Denmark must be 

 supposed chiefly to be based on eels that grow up in our own seas, it can- 

 not be deuied that the conditions are somewhat different in the northern 

 part of the Sound. It is a faet that a great number of eels migrate soutli- 

 wards along the eastern shores of Sweden, and turn off to the north at 

 Skanør. (B. Lundberg: Special Catalogue. Sweden. International Fisheries 

 Exhibition. Bergen. 1898.) These eels then, in point of faet, migrate from 

 the Baltic to the Sound. Moreover, there is uot in the Sound any larger 

 area of Zosfera from which the whole number of eels could come; for the 

 shallows around the isles of Amager and Saltholm are partly too small, 

 partly not so very rich in eels. 



I shall meution here, particularly, that this counting of eel-traps in 

 Denmark was commeuced in the belief timt it would show that by far the 

 greater part of the silver eels which are caught in our seas came from the 

 Baltic. Only little by little, aud reluctantly, this view has been changed; for 

 it is not only contrary to the generally accepted opinions, but it seems also 

 immediately to lead to remarkable consequences. For, even if we accept 

 this view and, on the strength of it, pretty well can explain the Danish 

 conditions, it remains to explain how the eels in the whole of the immense 

 Baltic Sea with its afflux from the immense lakes in Russia, Finland, Sweden, 

 and Germany, can breed, when they cannot go into the sea through our 

 Belts. For they must into the sea to breed, of that there is no doubt, parti- 

 cularly after the latest Italian investigations. 



The answer to this it that, if the whole of the Baltic Sea were as rich 

 in eels as the Danish waters, and had, consequeutly, as many times more 

 eels as it is larger than our waters, i. e. 20 or 30 times as niauy, then the 

 fisheries in the Sound must be much greater than they are. On the Danish 

 side of the Sound there are no more traps than in the Limfjord alone, and 



