98 Fish Culturists Association. 



think, in no year below 25,000,000, if we take all the dead fish. 

 The herring-fishery has been very small in some years; jnst 

 now in five or six years it has failed on the western part — what 

 we call Springnelt — but at the same time we get a heavy catch 

 on the northern part of the country, and of a little larger size. 

 We call that the large herring. The difference between now 

 and then is that the last year I think they caught 200,000 barrels, 

 and some years ago they caught over 1,000,000 barrels in the 

 whole. Because they do not know the reason, they do not know 

 how to have any remedy for getting the fishery back again ; and 

 they have no law about the herring-fishery, except the size of the 

 seines or the meshes in the seines, that they do not get too 

 small fish ; but they have the liberty to put their seines and nets 

 wherever they want. They have a special police for these 

 fisheries, both for the cod-fisheries and the herring-fisheries, but 

 it is only to keep order, to stop the fishermen from going out 

 when the weather is too rough, and to keep justice when there 

 comes up any trouble. We have had some maps about the 

 fisheries to show in which channel the herring is going into the 

 country, thinking that if we could find the channel, and there 

 find anything that would hinder them from coming in, we could 

 have that removed, but, as far as I know, they find nothing. 

 They found the herring in the depths of the ocean. They come 

 to the coast to spawn, and then go out again ; but the reason 

 why they do not come now nobody can tell. Some say that the 

 herring belongs to the deep-water fish, and only comes in to 

 spawn. Others say that they belong to the coast-fish, and 

 extend only a short distance from the coast, but the last 

 acknowledgment about this matter is that the herring belongs 

 to the ocean-fish. 



There was an expedition last summer which had in charge to 

 investigate the whole ocean from Norway to Iceland, to get 



