COD, HADDOCKS, WHITING, BREAM, ETC 415 



deteriorating, and it is hoped that this hatchery will restore 

 it to its former excellence. 



Flodevig, at Arendal in Norway, a very much more im- 

 portant cod hatchery, is under the direction of Captain 

 G. M. Dannevig. Since it was established something like 

 nine hundred million cod fry have been bred there and placed 

 in Norwegian waters, and a matter more to the point there 

 has been a marked increase in the number of small cod found 

 along the coasts. While the returns for other fish have de- 

 creased, the cod fisheries, in which 101,650 fishermen are 

 engaged, appear to be improving. The immensity of the 

 operations may be gathered from the fact that in 1892 Norway 

 exported cod to the value of thirty-three million kroner, a 

 kroner being a little more than a shilling. The hatchery of 

 Flodevig was formerly a private enterprise, but for the last few 

 years it has been endowed by the government. 



Formerly cod used to be stripped of their ova like salmon 

 or trout ; but there is a great difference between the two fish. 

 In salmon and trout the eggs ripen all at one time, and can be 

 removed by pressure on the abdomen in a few seconds ; in 

 cod they ripen by degrees, and are extruded at intervals lasting 

 for a period of six weeks or so. Captain Dannevig now allows 

 his fish to spawn naturally, and the impregnation of the eggs 

 also takes place naturally with very good results, the fish mean- 

 while being kept in ponds supplied with filtered sea water. As 

 the eggs come floating to the surface, the milt following and mix- 

 ing with them, they are collected and placed in hatching boxes. 



Anyone visiting Norway should certainly pay Flodevig a 

 visit, and if a man of wealth, of a patriotic turn of mind and 

 anxious to do his country a service, let him start some such 

 institution on our own coasts. Those who would see cod fish- 

 ing at its best, or shall I say worst, should when paying a visit 

 to the midnight sun, or latitudes slightly less northern, drop 



