734 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The lobster, which creeps on the bottom, sees or smells the bait, and 

 seeking to get it goes round the barrel until he finds the funnel ; he 

 enters it and finds himself caught. Sometimes in drawing up the barrel 

 a lobster is found lying upon it. The fishermen tend these pots ordi- 

 narily in pairs. They use all sorts of fishes for bait, but employ neither 

 mackerel nor herring, experience having shown that the lobster taken 

 with such bait does not live long. 



The barrels (or pots) are placed in the water in the morning and even- 

 ing, and the fishermen can, in the interval, procure proper bait, as cod, 

 pollack, &c. As soon as the lobster is taken from the tine his claws 

 are bound with pack-thread; otherwise they would destroy each other. 

 The fisherman then unbinds his prey and places it in a special box, 

 which he keeps submerged at the bottom of the sea, until he can carry 

 to the collecting-boat the product of his catch ; left in the water near 

 the surface it would soon die. Each pair of fishermen has ordinarily 

 as many pots as the boat can contain, perhaps 30 to 50, and this is 

 enough to give them plenty to do, the day hardly being long enough to 

 provide the necessary bait. As long as the fishing lasts they wander in 

 their boats from one shore, or fjord, to another, regulating their move- 

 ments by the chance of meeting the lobster. 



Anybody is allowed to take lobsters, except from July 15 to October 

 15, which constitutes a close time, during which this fishery is prohib- 

 ited. Nearly all the lobsters are disposed of to the English, who have 

 made contracts with the fishermen, and come to seek the product in 

 small vessels built si^cially for the purpose. 



To the same class as the lobster belongs the crab {imgnre)^ which in- 

 habits nearly the same places, and rts found in incredible quantity in 

 some of the fiords of our west coast, especially where it is rocky and 

 perpendicular. They are taken, like lobsters, in tines (except that these 

 are larger and the bars are closer together); the tines are baited in the 

 same manner as for the lobster. The crabs, which are often 10 or 12 

 inches long, are so abundant that 40 or 50 are sometimes taken in a 

 single tine. Unfortunately, the profit on this fishery is very moderate, 

 the crab not being eaten by the maritime population, and its price being 

 very low in the markets of Bergen and Stavanger. Cut up fine it is 

 used as bait for catching the little sey or pollack, and sometimes the 

 autumn mackerel. 



Lately they have commenced to preserve the crab in hermetically- 

 sealed boxes ; specimens of this new product figure at the Paris Expo- 

 sition, and there is ground for the hope that, thanks to this preparation, 

 the crab will in time find a foreign market. 



The prawn is caught also in great abundance, especially in the east. 

 The Svelvig prawn [Pandolus borealis), which is distinguished by its 

 red color and is two or three times as large as the ordinary prawn, is 

 caught exclusively at Svelvig, and sold at Drammen, where it is much 

 sought after. 



