THE COD FISHERIES NEAR THE LOFFODEN ISLANDS. G29 



schools which are not so far away, which, however, are not reached by 

 the fishermen, because these schools keep in the very deep water inside 

 the ridge, where the usual fishing implements, nets and lines, cannot be 

 used. It would, nevertheless, be worth while to make experiments here 

 with very long lines during the winter-fisheries. It seems to me, as I 

 mentioned before, very probable that large masses of cod also enter 

 the inner portion of the Westfiord every winter, do not, however, ap- 

 proach the coast, but spawn in the deep water ; in accordance with the 

 peculiar spawning method of this fish there would be nothing to hinder 

 this. Old fishermen have assured me that a long ridge slanting on both 

 sides also runs along the middle of the Westfiord, and that these sides are 

 much frequented by fish. This ridge is also in part given on the new 

 fishing-map of the Westfiord, and the observations made by me this 

 year fully corroborate its existence, only its extent, especially in the 

 inner fiord, seems to be much larger than is marked on the map. In the 

 middle, between Skraaven and the inland (Stegeu), I found this ridge 

 rising 120-150 fathoms from the bottom ; and the bottom was not as in 

 the other deep places of the Westfiord a soft clay, but mixed with gravel 

 and small stones, the very bottom which fish like (so called "fish- 

 bottoms"). 



I am extremely anxious not to be misunderstood with regard to the 

 above. Whatever I have said regarding the relation of the winter-cod 

 to the schools of herring is by no means to be considered as fully proved 

 facts, but only as suppositions, which, however, have a great deal in 

 their favor. It would be very desirable if accurate scientific investiga- 

 tions of the occurrence of the herring in these latitudes could be made, 

 and especially if more light could be thrown on the so-called ocean- 

 herring, whose young in all probability are those very schools of herring 

 which enter the Westfiord during the winter fisheries. I consider it as 

 beyond all doubt that there is a mutual relation between these two fish, 

 the cod and the herring; and I have already, in my former report, ex- 

 pressed it as my opinion that the normal food of the winter-cod consists 

 chiefly of herring, and that only during its younger stages, as " smaagjed"' 

 or algCB-fish, it lives on the various small marine animals which live in 

 shallow water among algai near the coast. This opinion seems to gain 

 strength by the above-mentioned circumstance that the winter-cod 

 which occasionally approach the Lofibden fishing-stations all during 

 summer have invariably a miserable and haggard appearance. 



Regarding the general occurrence of the winter-cod, I have already 

 in my former report expressed the opinion that it does not only aj)proach 

 certain ^joints of the coast for the purpose of simwning, but that it prob- 

 ably approaches the coast along the whole long-stretched northern and 

 western coast of onr country at one and the same time, and that the 

 great reputation which the Loffbden fisheries have enjoyed from time 

 immemorial has been caused more by the peculiar orographic formation 

 of this group of islands — their stretching out into the ocean like a long 



