628 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



herrings, just like those coming in summer, generally keep inside, i. e., 

 on that siile of the ridge (egbakke) looking toward the Westfiord, and 

 as this ridge all through the West-Loffodeu is at a considerable (2-3 

 Norwegian miles) distance from the coast, they would here have but 

 little or no influence on the coming in of the cod, while in the East 

 Loffodeu this would h^ entirely different, because there the ridge is very 

 near the coast. Especially south of the fishing-station of Skraaven 

 does the ridge come close up to the shore, and this station, which in 

 connection with the Molla Islands forms a long wedge stretching out 

 into the Westfiord, likewise forms the natural boundary between the 

 two great divisions of the Westfiord — the outer and the inner basin. 



In the outer basin the fisheries have been successful at all times, only 

 with this difference, that the fish have not always in the same number 

 entered the limited sheet of water between Skraaven and Vaageu, called 

 '* Hola." But in the division lying east of Skraaven, or the inner basin 

 of the Westfiord, the fisheries have been exceedingly irregular. In 

 olden times rich cod-fisheries were regularly carried on every year at 

 the now deserted fishing-stations of Eisvser, Swellingerne, Kanstadfiord, 

 &c., but during the last few years only scattered schools have been ob- 

 served at the fishing-stations immediately east of Skraaven, the Guld- 

 brands Islands, Brettesnass, and the Raft Sound, while the fishing- 

 stations farther east, formerly so rich in fish, are now entirely deserted. 

 I think the main cause of this is the schools of herring entering the 

 Westfiord during the winter-fisheries. The chief mass of those fish 

 which in former times made their appearance at the above-mentioned 

 eastern fishery-station had then, as now, by following the ridge, been 

 obliged to go round the south side of Skraaven in order to enter the 

 inner basin of the fiord; and as in those times neither herring nor any 

 other food was to be found here, these schools had, according to their 

 custom, gone further, always following the ridge rising toward the coast. 



Circumstances are different now. As soon as the schools during their 

 coming in get to the above-mentioned point of the ridge stretching far 

 out into the Westfiord, they will as a general rule fall in with one or the 

 other of the passing schools of herring, and thus by pursuing the her- 

 ring, which always keep the middle of the fiord, get farther away from 

 the coast. It is my conviction that the winter-cod goes as far east in 

 the Westfiord now as in olden times, only with this difference, that 

 while near the eastern fishing-stations it does not stay on the fishing- 

 banks as formerly but keeps in deep water or inside the ridge. Every 

 winter while the cod-fisheries are going on at the western fishing- 

 stations, real winter-cod aie occasionally caught with deep-water lines 

 even at the most easterly fishing-station, viz, Kanstadfiord j and it is 

 very improbable that these should be scattered forerunners of the g^'ea.t 

 mass of fish coming from the west, which all by themselves should have 

 undertaken the long journey from the western fishing-stations. It seems 

 much more natural to suppose that these scattered fish belong to large 



