472 THE MAIGRE. 



Helgeland (lat. (55° to 06°), it is not uucomnion, and is 

 said to remain there all the year round. Kroyer surmises 

 it to be intermediate in size between tlie^. Norvegicus and 

 the S. viviparus. It is found at a depth of 100 to 120 

 fathoms where the bottom is rocky. 



The Fifteen-spined Stickleback, or Great Sea-Adder 

 {Tang-Spujg, Sw. ; Tang-Snarre, Dan. ; Spinachia milgaris, 

 Cuv.), though less common than the ten-spined (which, 

 with others of the Oasterostei, is fully spoken of in my 

 last work, " Scandinavian Adventures"), is found every- 

 where on the coasts of Scandinavia, as well in the North 

 Sea as in the Baltic, and confines itself altogether to salt 

 water. It runs from five to six inches, but at times 

 exceeds seven. Its chief resorts are grassy bottoms 

 amongst seaweed, and hence its Swedish and Danish 

 names. Except during the spawning season, which 

 Kroyer supposes to be in the month of June, it seldom 

 seeks the shallows. It is never eaten, but either boiled 

 down into oil or converted into manure. At the village 

 of Molle, in Scania, it is called the TFikler-fisk, or, weather- 

 fish, and is made use of to foretell the coming wind. For 

 this purpose the dry body of the fish is suspended 

 horizontally by a thread attached from its back to a 

 rafter of the fisherman's hut, and from the quarter 

 to which its head points it is firmly believed the wind 

 will come. 



The Maigre {Ha/s-Gos, Sw. ; Scicena Aquilci, Cuv. & 

 Val.), whose projier home is the more southern parts of 

 the Mediterranean, has only in one instance been iden- 

 tified in the Scandinavian seas. Tliis was in 1852, 

 when a specimen, five feet in length, and weighing 

 seventy-two pounds, having become entangled amonsfst 

 the weeds on the coast of Scania, was caught with boat- 

 hooks and slaui^htered bv the fishermen, and is now 

 preserved in the Lund Museum. 



