72 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. 
being held in reserve to fill up the place of those which are 
lost from accident, or which are being dried after use. 
About twenty-five of the nets, however, are fastened together, 
to be set by each boat. These are joined by being 
riveted at top and bottom, and are kept taut in the water 
by means of iron sinkers, and floats made of hollow glass, 
and are so arranged as to be either close to the bottom, or 
a few feet from it. The men at a signal all start in the 
afternoon to set their nets in the way described, placing 
them across the current, the fishermen usually returning to 
the shore after that work has been satisfactorily accomplished. 
Then after a few hours’ rest, and in the darkness of a night 
that may be both stormy and bitterly cold, the men start 
again for the fishing ground, to gather in the fish that may 
have been caught. This is both exciting and hard work, 
but it is work which must be accomplished, no matter how 
the winds may roar, or the waves may leap. The heavily 
weighted nets are ill to haul on board, especially when well 
laden with fish, which happily they sometimes are. The 
catch, however, is exceedingly variable, ranging from a few 
dozens in a day to a few hundreds for each boat—five 
hundred fish is thought a good take, and the fish captured in 
this manner are the very primest of the prime, 200 of which 
will be equal to 350 of cod taken by the hooks, whilst the 
livers of the gill-captured fish yield more liberally of oil than 
those which are taken by means of the trawl. 
These fishermen earn more money at the Lofoten cod- 
fishery than their brethren who handle the lines, or manipu- 
late the trawl, and in consequence there is a growing desire 
to prosecute that branch of cod fishing. It is stated that 
in 1879 there were 2532 boats engaged in that style of 
fishing, with crews numbering in all 14,322 men; in the pre- 
ceding year the total catch of cod at the Lofoten fishery 
