THE COD FISHERIES NEAR THE LOFFODEN ISLANDS. 027 



the coast to the deep. Experience teaches them now to prefer the many 

 hidden raised bottoms where the heavy waves breal. ; and some of them 

 assume here a completely stationary- mode of life, wliich soon shows 

 itself in their shape and color. The large anil fat algie-lish, with a very 

 distinct reddish color and an unusually short and com])re8sed shape, are 

 such stationary lish. But even these may, in a couii)aratively short 

 time, assume a different appearance, viz, when the coming in of the sand- 

 eels entices them away from their old hunting-grounds. But the schools 

 of sand-eels do not on-ly entice away the cod living on the algie-bottoms, 

 but likewise a large number of those cod which have already reached 

 the ridge (the " cgbal-ke^'), and these fish, which often are the exact 

 counterparts of the winter-cod, may, on their return to the deep, remain 

 on the algaibottomsand become genuine algcetish. 



A new interruption in the normal development is occasioned by the 

 appearance of the schools of small herrings. Following the old rule 

 that everything new possesses a peculiar charm, the cod now prefer the 

 herring to the sand-eel, although one should think that both would taste 

 very much alike. Where (as it sometimes happens) the schools of her- 

 ring come close to the shore, the same cod may have made the trip from 

 the shore to the deep, and again from the deep to the shore, two to three 

 times. As a general rule, however, the schools of herring keep farther 

 out, and rather entice the fish away from the shore than toward it. 

 These schools of herring consist either of large, fat summer-herring or 

 of very small, young herring, probably that year's young ones of the 

 so-called ocean-herring^ and these are the ones which are specially en- 

 ticing to the young cod. The same schools of young herrings also show 

 themselves at other times of the year in different stages of development. 

 For a long number of years small and large schools of half-grown (one- 

 year old) herring have during the winter Loffodeu fisheries steadily 

 made their appearance in the Westfiord, and stragglers have every now 

 and then come near the shore, where they are eagerly caught and used 

 as bait for the cod fisheries. I consider it extremely probable that both 

 this half grown herring and the very small herring roaming about the 

 Westfiord during summer are the offspring of the ocean-herring. 



I desire to draw special attention to this circumstance, as it is my 

 opinion that the occurrence of these schools of small herrings in the 

 Westfiord exercises a decided influence on the cod-fisheries. In olden 

 times neither the ocean herring nor the schools of small herrings which 

 come to the Westfiord regularly every winter were known in these lati- 

 tudes. The ocean-herring seems to have kept further north, near the 

 coast of Finmarken, where it took the place of the capelin {Mallotus 

 arcticus) found there now. We have seen what a disturbing influence 

 the schools of young herring, roaming about during summer, exercise on 

 the normal migrations of the young cod, and the supposition lies very 

 near, that the schools of larger herring entering the Westfiord in winter 

 likewise influence the coming in of the winter-cod. As these schools of 



