142 ITS ENORMOUS SIZE. 



With us the burbot spawned about Christmas, or a little 

 later. Swedish naturalists assign the month of March as the 

 spawning season in the Wenern, but in this there must be 

 some mistake. The place where the lek is held, called Lak-ds, 

 or burbot-bank, has usually a sandy bottom. From the 

 small size and great number of the eggs, the fecundity of this 

 fish would appear to be considerable. It is on record, that 

 one hundred and seventy-eight thousand eggs have been found 

 in the body of one female. The young are said to appear 

 within a few weeks of the deposit of the roe, and to be in 

 their third year capable of procreation. 



The burbot attains to a very considerable size in Scan- 

 dinavia. Swedish and Danish naturalists assume eleven 

 pounds as its maximum weight. Pallas affirms that it grows 

 to the length of two feet. In the Wenern, as also in the 

 large lakes in Wermeland, it is, to my knowledge occasionally 

 taken of twenty pounds weight. The Kallandso fishermen 

 assure me, indeed and I am inclined to believe their state- 

 ment that though they themselves never captured a burbot 

 much exceeding twenty pounds, they on a particular occa- 

 sion saw one in the Lidkoping market that weighed thirty 

 pounds. It was so large and so forbidding in appearance, 

 they said, that no person would buy it. 



The devices adopted in Sweden for the capture of the 

 burbot are very numerous, but in general very simple in 

 their nature, as the fish is by no means cunning. 



Of the various contrivances more will be said here- 

 after ; but one, called att dofva, or to stun the fish, 

 may be mentioned here. The operation is effected in this 

 manner : 



At the commencement of the winter, and a little prior 



