THE COD FISHERIES NEAR THE LOFFODEN ISLANDS. 573 



Sound, the Kanstad fiord, &c., although I do not mean to say that the 

 codfish, if its coining in was not disturbed at all, could not find its way 

 up these fiords without this food. 



The circumstance that the codfish when approaching the coast follows 

 the herring schools proves that it cannot deny its innate greediness, 

 even during the time when the spawning instinct is all-powerful. This 

 greediness is, however, not quite so great at this season, as I never, 

 among the many fish which 1 examined at this time, found any whose 

 stomach contained the usual food of the codfish, chiefly consisting of large 

 crustaceans (principally decapods and amphipods). Even among those 

 fish which were caught in the beginning of the fisheries, and of which I 

 opened a large number, in order to obtain from the contents of the stom- 

 ach some intimation as to the favorite dwelling-place of the codfish, I 

 found in nearly all cases that the stomach was empty and had shrunk, 

 which shows conclusively that they cannot have taken any food for 

 a long time. Where anything was found in the stomach, it consisted 

 chiefly of pieces of the bait torn from the lines. 



The herring with a silvery shining color must certainly have a special 

 attraction for the codfish, for they cannot refrain from snapping at the 

 bait, which very often is nothing but old salt herring. It is of course 

 understood that they will snap still more eagerly after fresh bait, so that 

 it is very important for those fishermen who fish chiefly with lines, to 

 procure fresh bait, even if they have to get it from a great distance. 

 This will be particularly useful if the sea at those places where fishing 

 is going on does not contain many herrings. Fresh bait will catch 

 twice as many fish as salt herring. 



I have said before that the codfish always come in in schools, and that 

 the last are larger than the first. Each one of these schools seems to 

 form a separate family consisting of spawners and milters. Even among 

 the first schools the proportion between both sexes has been very even, 

 while with other fish this is different, the milters always coming some- 

 what later than the spawners, in order to fructify the eggs laid by the 

 latter. This has its reason in the jjeculiar circumstances of the spawn- 

 ing, of which I shall say more in another chapter. The generative 

 organs are strongly developed both in the male and female of the first 

 codfish coming in, but they have not by any means reached their full 

 development, which is indicated by the roe and the milt being firm, and 

 the former, moreover, being fine-grained. The fishermen, as a general 

 rule, consider it as a good sign, when large masses of codfish approach 

 the coast, if the roe is still firm and fine-grained, because this indicates 

 that the fish will stay for a considerable time on the elevated bottom. 



A question which comes up in connection with an investigation of our 

 cod-fisheries, and on which I therefore desire to dwell before proceeding 

 any further in my report, is this: "Where do the codfish come from? 

 Where do these enormous masses of fish stay during the rest of the 

 year, when no traces of them can be found ?" There are many different 



