200 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



during the period tliey visited the coast of Sondmor (1736-1756) came 

 later and later every year, and predicted, in accordance ■with an old 

 tradition and the experience had at Stat, that the herring-fisheries of 

 Sondmor would come to an end. This really took place in Bohuslan, 

 where it had been observed ali-eady towards the middle of the last great 

 fishery-jjeriod, that the herrings came to the coast later and later every 

 year, which led people to fear that as in times of old the herrings might 

 again gradually leave the Swedish coasts. Somewhat later (1782) Strom 

 compared the Bohuslan fisheries with those of ;N"orway, and, basing his 

 opinion on their e^ident similarity, predicted that the end of the Bohus- 

 lan fisheries was near at hand. 



About ten years later Lyhecker expresses himself more distinctly, as 

 follows: "If with prophetic eye we could see the future and predict the 

 fate of the fisheries, we might say with a great degree of probability that 

 a. change will take place soon. We know from history that when her- 

 rings or other fish-of-passage arrive near the coast later and later, and 

 at the same time keep farther and farther away from the coast, this 

 means a change in the migrations of the herrings, and may even point 

 to their leaving the coast entu^ely. This has been the course of the ]S"or- 

 wegian herring-fisheries, and even of the Swedish herring-fisheries during 

 their older periods, and in fact with all those fisheries where fish-of-pas- 

 sage are the principal object, with the only exception of the Scotch and 

 English fisheries. * * * If we take into consideration the roving- 

 nature of the herrings and the examples from olden times, it is highly 

 probable that the herrings will come later every year and finally leave 

 our coast altogether." 



It had frequently been maintained that too much fishing, and fishing 

 with destructive apparatus, were the proper causes of the herrings com- 

 ing later every year, and might even lead to the complete cessation of 

 the fisheries ; and people therefore made futile attempts to obviate this 

 danger by legislation. As the ominous predictions regarding the her- 

 ring-fisheries were, however, not immediately fulfilled, they were almost 

 forgotten ; but when the herring-fisheries came to an end in the year 

 1808 people imagined that the herrings arriving later and later every 

 year fully proved the assertion that they had been driven away by the 

 imprudent action of the fishermen. It was said that refuse thrown into 

 the water, and noise, had prevented the herrings fi'om coming near to the_ 

 coast, that they had spawned in the open sea, and had, then, in conse- 

 quence of the languor and weakness following the spawning, been driven 

 towards the coast by storms. 



During the more recently closed Norwegian spring-herring fisheries it 

 was (according to Loherg) noticed, not without anxious forebodings, that 

 the herrings, which in the beginning of the fishing-period did not come 

 near the coast till early in February, gradually came earlier and earlier, 

 so that finally the fisheries commenced before K'ew Year ; and that this 

 change was followed by another, the herrings again coming later and 



