I 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



The Swedish Hemng-Fisheries, Piist and Present. — Superstitions. — 

 Enormous Takes. — The Herrings desert the Coast. — Reasons assigned 

 for their DLsappearance. — These Reasons gainsaid by the Fishermen. 

 — Speculations on the Subject. — Loss attendant on the Absence of the 

 Fish. — Demoralized State of the Fishermen. 



A 



S mentioned in a recent chapter, the Swedish 

 heiTing-fisheries were at one time the largest 

 and most flourishing in Europe, but owing to tlie 

 disappearance of the fish from the coast for the past 

 sixty or eighty years, they have dwindled down to 

 almost insignificance ; and at the present day there is 

 little to remind one of them but the curing-houses and 

 other buildings, now in a state of wrack and ruin, in 

 which operations used to be carried on. The subjoined 

 short account of the fisheries in question — the chief of 

 which were in the Bohus Skargard — may not be without 

 interest, both to those connected with similar establish- 

 ments and to the naturalist. 



Though for ages previously herrings had been most 

 plentiful, yet during the first half of the sixteenth 



