380 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND IISHERIES. [18] 



It is natural that the coming together of so many people made it nec- 

 essary to have proper rales and regulations. According to Schlyter, the 

 first rules of this kind were made by King Waldemar Atterdag (1340- 

 1375) ; the exact year, however, is not known. A fuller code was pro- 

 mulgated by Erik of Pomerania, and Queen Margaret (1396-1412). 

 The few data we possess relative to the manner in which the fisheries 

 were carried on in those days are taken from these and other laws of 

 that period. 



As at the present time, the fisheries were carried on partly with float- 

 ing-nets and partly with bottom -nets. It was strictly forbidden to 

 stretch a net from the surface to the bottom so as to hinder the herring 

 from reaching other nets. It seems that each fisherman could have 

 only a certain limited number of nets. We find in these laws many 

 regulations to prevent the exportation or sale of herring without pay- 

 ing duty to the Crown. Thus it was prohibited to salt herring on board 

 vessels or boats or on the strand : no herring could be sold on the shore 

 or carried away from the shore in sacks or baskets, but must be con- 

 veyed in carts and wagons, each having a full load. It was forbidden 

 to take up bottoui-nets except in the daj'-time, or to leave the port at 

 night-time. It was strictly prohibited to put any damaged herring into 

 the barrels ; and any woman who threw the herring direct from the 

 troughs into the barrels, instead of laying them carefully, had to pay 

 the death penalty. According to Allen, King Ilans in 1508 ordered the 

 Dantzic fishermen to use only the fine white Liineburg salt instead of 

 the "Bay salt" (salt from the region of the Loire in France) and other 

 coarse salt, from the use of which the Skane herring had become of 

 poorer quality from year to year. The Dantzic fishermen, however, did 

 not obey this order, and King Hans, who was engaged in numerous 

 wars, did not find time to enforce it. 



The sprat {Clupea sprattus) is certainly Ibund near the coasts of Skane, 

 but, with the possible exception of the Cattegat, not in any considerable 

 quantity, and does not to any great extent form the object of fisheries. 



The eel fisheries.— These fisheries are remunerative on the east 

 coast of Skane, and iu several places exceed the herring fisheries in im- 

 portance. The fishermen distinguish three kinds of eels, but only two of 

 these are of any importance, namely, the so-called " drif eel " (or " hlanh 

 eel") and the " grass eel." The former are taken mainly with the horn- 

 mor, a kind of fish-basket, and the latter are taken near the coast 

 all the year round, but these last-mentioned fisheries are comparatively 

 of little importance. The drif eel is distinguished from the grass eel 

 by being larger and fatter, and principally by being white or silverish 

 gray on the belly, while the belly of the grass eel has a more or less 

 yellow color, and is also smaller and leaner. The drif or blanTc eel is 

 (as I have shown in my treatise " Om Aljisket,'^ &c., in " Transactions of 

 the Koyal Agricultural Academy," 1881) an eel which comes from fresh 



