APPENDIX TO COUNTER-CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 531 



I^otes on the Hatclieries and Fresh- Water Fisheries of Iceland. 

 By Bened. S. Thorarinsson. 



ICELAND FISHERIES, 



''The attention of the LegisJative Assembly was not spe- ibid., p. 121. 

 daily directed to this matter of protecting the fisheries, nor 

 were laws enacted on this subject before 1885; and the 

 present laws are in many instances primitive, imperfect, 

 and inconvenient, according to the conditions of the coun- 

 try. One of the worst features is that in regard to seals, 

 which are so injurious to the salmon fisheries. This is con- 

 tained in section 4 of the following Statute. The defective 

 point about this bit of legislation is that in all salmon rivers 

 (with one exception) and their mouths, where there are seals 

 there are also seal catching places, so that the law is of 

 little or no benefit to the salmon, as it is forbidden to dis- 

 turb the seals in the places where they are at all easily 

 accessible." 



Section 4 referred to is as follows : 



"Section 4. In rivers and their months where there are 

 salmon, it is allowed to shoot or frighten seals, with the 

 restriction that the inviolability of breeding and seal-catch- 

 ing places, which are thus especially proclaimed, must not 

 be infringed upon, except with the penalty of full damages, 

 according to the estimate of good men nominated by the 

 Judge and sworn in Court." 



DENMARK. 



"Owing to rewards now granted by Fishing Society of "Nautical 

 Denmark, amounting to 3 kroners for each seal killed, i^^fTo'rkovem 

 accordiTig to the Copenhagen correspondent of our con- ter isiio.' 

 temporary, 'Industries,' the extermination of seals is now 

 being energetically x)ursued in Danish waters. It appears 

 that in those localities where the fishery industry has been 

 pursued with least success the seals most abound. A seal 

 is seldom seen in the neighbourhood of Middlefart, in the 

 Little Belt, as the fishermen in that neighbourhood are 

 very active in fishing and seal-hunting." 



"Ai* contraire, on the small Island of Hosselo, nortt of 

 Zealand, one man sent in the heads of no less than 120 seals, 

 while another man sent in 40 within the last ten months. 

 During this period 810 seals have been killed." • 



DAMAGE IN ESSEX COUNTY, MASS. 



On the coast of the United States, also, similar facts have 

 been observed even in the jiresent year, as shown by the 

 following paragraph: 



A Large Seal Migration. — The bay fishiufj in Essex County, "Foreat ana 

 Massachusetts, has been so seriously injured by the alleged depreda- ^*'^f flon?*^^"*" 

 tions of seals that the authorities ofiered a bounty of 1 dollar each ^^ ' 

 for killing them. During 1891 the fishermen killed forty-four on the 

 coast and in the rivers of the county. 



