ON THE BOTANY AND ENTOMOLOGY OF ICELAND, 247 
produce that their fathers, husbands, and brothers have just 
_ obtained. A large proportion of the fish thus taken is sub- 
sequently exported on board the passing steamers to Scot- 
land, England, Denmark, France, and last, not least, Spain. 
The Spaniards are especially reputed to be great consumers 
of fish from Iceland, and the markets of Western Europe are 
thence supphed to a greater extent than from any other 
place. All the captures of course are not conveyed on board 
the periodical steamers ; there are English, American, Danish, 
Norwegian, Faroese, French sailing vessels in and around 
the different fjords, that remain there for a month or two at 
a time, July and August, for example, while the fishing lasts, 
and then stand off home again with their cargo. The fishing 
banks round the coast of Iceland are far too lucrative to be 
altogether in the hands of the natives, and men like Geir 
Zoega, the head of the well-known family of Zoega at 
Reykjavik, that has furnished so many guides to the passing 
visitor, and is of Italian extraction, find it profitable to buy 
fish from the boatmen there, or from the farmers up country, 
warehouse them in a large shed erected for the purpose at 
the end of Vesturgata, or West Street, close to the landing- 
stage at Reykjavik, with each layer duly salted, and thence 
send it abroad. Mr. Paterson, the genial and pleasant Scotch 
Consul, residing at Hafnafjord, also engages in the same 
trade. and constructs his own packing cases in the wooden 
building wherein he stores his fish, and the member for the 
Westmann Islands has also, I believe, gained money by the 
same profitable business in his msular home; but Zoega does 
the largest trade in this way. A large number of fish, more- 
over, 1s stored up by the natives for their own winter con- 
sumption; their ponies, as well as themselves, are fed to a 
great extent on the cod heads, which are, as a rule, not eaten 
by ourselves, but all the same are reputed to contain a great 
deal of nutriment, and it is a very ordinary sight to behold 
an up-couutry farmer jogging along on his shaggy pony 
with a string of cod heads round the animal’s neck. 
The first glimpse that I had of the staple industry of 
- Iceland was off Kaupstadr, the largest of the Westmann 
Islands, towards the evening of July 3rd, when four cod 
were hauled on board from an Iceland fishing boat for our 
consumption, for the sum of 60 ore = 8d., about one-third of 
the price they would fetch off Southport Pier. And the 
same sight greetcd me, only on a far larger scale, as I landed 
at Reykjavik harbour, on the morning of the following day. 
As the invariable rule in Iceland ‘is to strew the beach with 
