622 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



long as one bad bait (for which sand-eels were used) there was no diffi- 

 culty in procuring in a very short time a tempting dish of delicious small 

 fish. Eegarding the looks of the fish, it had as at Skraaven sometimes 

 the characteristics of the algjc cod and sometimes those of the sand-eel 

 cod, which latter gradually became more common, as the coming in of 

 the sand-eels took place at this time. 



One day I devoted to fishing at a great depth (about 100 fathoms). 

 The bottom was everywhere composed of clay, occasionally mixed with 

 gravel and small pebbles, and the fish which I caught here were, as a 

 general rule, larger than those caught in shallow water. While in shal- 

 low water one might always be sure that any fish that bit woijld be cod 

 (just as the fly-fisher on our small streams is sure that any fish which 

 snaps at the fly is trout, Trutta fario) very different kinds of fish were 

 caught here, which could already be noticed by the way in which the 

 fish bit. Sometimes the line suddenly felt heavy without any previous 

 jerk at it having been noticed, and, after a troublesome hauling, a large 

 slimy brosme or cusk {Brosmius vulgaris) came up, its eyes sticking far 

 out of its head on account of the diminished pressure of the water. 

 Another time there were some gentle, scarcely perceptible, pulls at the 

 line; but in beginning to haul it in one could notice that no small fish was 

 coming.' The higher the line came the lighter it got, so that toward the 

 end it felt as if both fish and hook had been lost, and before it had been 

 hauled in entirely a beautiful pink-colored ner (red fish) or Norway had- 

 dock {Sebastes norwegicus), with eyes protruding and mouth wide open, 

 leaped out of the water, the hook firmly fixed in its mouth. Again, 

 there would be a powerful pull at the line, so that for a time one could 

 scarcely move it, and presently it would get so light as to induce the be- 

 lief that the fish had been lost; then again it began to feel heavy ; this 

 time it would be a halibut {Hippoglossus maximus) which had thus to 

 suffer for its greediness, and which had to be hauled in very carefully 

 and knocked a few times on the head before it could be taken into the 

 boat. Often a large cod would bite, and, corresponding to the nature of 

 the bottom, it would have a very pale grayish-green color. Some very 

 large but very lean cod which were caught here, covered all over with 

 parasites (fish-lice), were, by my fishermen, called winter-cod which had 

 been left over from the last winter fisheries, and which, from some reason 

 or other, had not found their way to the great deep w^here the great 

 mass of the winter-cod always goes after they have done spawning. 

 Such specters are every now and then caught all the year round, and 

 their miserable starved appearance is in a very plausible manner ex- 

 plained by the fishermen, who say that they do not find sufiQcient food 

 to which they had been accustomed while farther out at sea. 



For some time yet I was quite successful in my fishing, but soon there 

 •was a change, and the same complaints w^ere heard from the fishermen, 

 that fish were scarce. The numerous pillars of smoke-like spray which, 

 on certain days, could be seen far up the Westfiord, resembling the chim- 



