5o NATURAL* HISTORY of NORWAY. 



the aforefaid horned infect, they difcharge a red liquor fcon 

 after, through the probofcis that had fuck'd it in f * 

 Red-Worm. On the coaft of the Weftern ocean, in the water between the 

 many iflands and cliffs near that fhore, in warm Summer days,, 

 are found more or lefs, and fbme years immenfe quantities 

 of a kind of finally and hardly perceptible Red-Worm, called 

 Roe-Aat ; they look like the fineft fewing filk ; they are hardly 

 half the length of a pin, but in fuch numberlefs quantities, as has 

 been faid, that they perfectly colour the water ; one quart of 

 water may contain many millions. When the Worms appear iri 

 fuch great quantities they do vaft damage to the herring-riming* 

 for the roe of the fifh immediately rots on their fixing on it, and 

 particularly when they are inclofed, or drove up in a creek, as 

 fbmetimes they are, by feveral hundred or thoufand tuns together^ 

 to be rinfed and falted occafionally ; which Ihall be fpoken of in 

 its proper place. 



From thefe Roe-Aat it fhould feem that a certain fort of Snails 

 get that red colour, which occafions the excrements of one of our 

 coaft birds, called Teiften, which lives chiefly on thofe fnails, to 

 be of a very high red colour ; this they drop all along the Ihore. 

 We may probably have Purple-Snails of the fame kind as the 

 Oriental, tho' not regarded. 

 Bear-fiih. We have here alio a kind of mifchievous lea infecTr, called 



Fifke-Biorn, that is, the Bear-fifh, by the common people : it 

 has a whitifh, hard and mining horny Ihell, divided by twelve 

 rings or circles ; and on the undermoft or flat fide it has twelve 

 feet. The largeft of thefe as I have feen, and of which I have, 

 is about the length of a joint of a finger, but the leaft not a 

 quarter part fo big ; and they differ in colour. Thefe vermin 

 plague various forts of fifh, but moft of any the cod. 



When he hangs to a hook, and cannot clear himfelf by fwim- 

 ming or fplafhing, then the Fifke-Biorn fattens on him, and fucks 

 out his juice and fat, fo that the cod won't be fit to eat. Thefe 

 Fifke-Biorne, or the like Infers, hunt many fifh about fo, that 

 they feek for land by way of fhelter, about the rocks near there, 

 according to the Creator's wife and gracious purpofes : particularly 

 the falmon is ferved fo., a fifh otherwife with us difficult to catch. 



If it was not for a number of green and blueifh flat lice, Some- 

 thing like bugs, which get between his fins, and plague him fo, 



t De pulice aquatico Hr. Swammerdam has very pretty obfervations in his Hift. 

 Infect, p. 70 : asalfo Derham in his Phyfico-Theolog. p. m. 368. 



The creature intended by this author is the Notone&a, or Boat-fly s_ not the Pulex 

 Aquat. of Swammerdam, and others. 



^ that 



