728 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



tbe drawing out of the gullet and bleeds at the same time the fish. 

 After this operation, the herring is placed in layers in the barrel ; two 

 or three layers above the top. A barrel thus filled contains about 480 

 herrings. After having remained so several days, the herring being 

 by that time saturated with salt, the barrel is filled anew and closed by 

 special workmen [dixelmwnd), and stored away to be examined anew, 

 and filled again at the moment of exportation. For each bushel of 

 herring is used one-fourth of a bushel of salt from Setubal, Cagliari, or 

 Trapani. 



The spring-herring fishery formerly occupied a large number of hands, 

 and produced in February or March an extraordinary movement all 

 along the length of the coast comprised between the city of Stavanger 

 and Cape Stat. Thousands of vessels and sail of all kind continually 

 furrowed the fjords. In every cove innumerable quantities of herring 

 were seen hemmed in by seines (notebrug), and in process of being 

 loaded on collecting-boats, which were to conduct them to the salting- 

 establishments. Clouds of sea-birds hovering around, plunged here 

 and there, and mounted in the air, a herring in their beaks, while num- 

 berless whales, not far from the coast, chased before them schools of 

 herring. With the herring all this life, all this movement has dis- 

 appeared. Let us hope that a near reappearance of this fish will soon 

 revive it. 



The product of the spring-herring fishery has in some years attained 

 to a magnitude of from 600,000 to 700,000 barrels per year, and about 

 6,000 boats have been occupied in it. Sweden, Eussia, and the Ger- 

 man ports of the Baltic Sea are the i^rincipal countries consuming it. 



It is, as stated, along the coast between Stavanger and Cape Stat 

 that the spring-herring fishery had its seat, principally at the islands of 

 Utsire and Karmo, at Skudesnses, at the islands of Fceo, Eova^r Espe- 

 vser, at Bommelfjord, and at Kvalvog, all situated to the south of 

 Bergen. To the north it was at Bremanger, Froio, Batalden, Kinn, 

 Tanso, and Bueland. 



2. The great herring in nordland. 



The great herring is a peculiar species which from 1851 to 1875 vis- 

 ited the coasts of Nordland and Southern Finmark, but has again dis- 

 appeared. Old documents relative to Nordland sometimes speak of 

 a large kind of herring used in the kitchen, but only in the last twenty 

 years has public attention been turned to this excellent species, and 

 since then arrangements have been made for taking it on a large 

 scale. Up to 1865 and 1806 the product of this fishery was without 

 importance, but since then and until 1875, several hundreds of thou- 

 sands of barrels have come to increase the prosperity of Nordland. 

 Since then, as before remarked, the large herring has followed the 

 example of the spring herring, and departed without any one knowing 

 whither. Will it ever return? It is impossible to say. 



