972 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
in a vertical position 0 . In the North-Sea fisheries one 
of these ‘fleets’ of nets frequently extends to a length 
of a mile and a quarter or more. The net is shot in 
the evening and hauled up in the morning. During the 
night it is allowed to drift with the boat, the warp 
being made fast in the bows. Drift-nets may also be 
used as gill-nets , the two ends being anchored; but the 
common gill-net, called skote in the Baltic, ndring in 
Halland, is of simpler construction and resembles the 
net used in fresh-water fishing. In recent times the 
North American * * 6 purse-seine has been introduced into 
Europe and employed in the Bohuslan fishery. It is a 
deep seine, with stout and closely corked head-rope but, 
strictly speaking, without foot-line, which is replaced 
by a purse-line running free through rings. The seine 
is shot in a circle round a shoal of fish swimming at 
the surface; and when the circle is complete, and the 
net walls in the shoal, the purse-line is hauled in, till 
the seine assumes the shape of a bag. The land-seine- 
is an engine as common and well-known as any kind 
of net; but in. the Herring-fishery it attains its maxi- 
mum dimensions, being so long and deep that whole 
arms of the sea or great portions thereof may be en- 
closed so as to bar the Herring’s retreat. The fish are 
then secured in smaller seines. The construction of 
the stake-net ( bundgarn , fig. 244) we have described 
above (p. 352). 
The voracity of the Herring is such that it may 
also be taken with hook and line, and sometimes no 
bait is necessary, the mere glitter of the dancing hook 
being sufficient to entice the fish. 
The annual take of Herrings can hardly be esti- 
mated; it must amount to thousands of millions. In 
the Baltic and the Sound more than 200,000 barrels of 
Strommings and Herrings, valued at about £166,600, 
are taken yearly by Swedish fishermen. A barrel of 
Strommings contains on an average more than 2,200 
fish. It is estimated that 1,900 — 2,000 Scanian Herrings 
go to the barrel. According to these estimates the 
average annual catch of the Swedish fishermen alone 
exceeds four hundred million Strommings and Herrings, 
and we may surely assume that the Finnish, Russian, 
German, and Danish fishermen together take at least 
three times as many. To judge from Dr. A. H. Malm’s 
latest reports on the Bohuslan fishery, the average an- 
nual take of Herrings for the fishing-seasons 1888 — 92 
was about five or six hundred millions, a hectolitre 
containing at least 300 Herrings. The average annual 
value of this fishery for the said four seasons was about 
£100,000, but in 1891 — 92 the value rose to £130,000. 
The several takes are given in the following extracts 
from Dr. A. H. Malm’s “Reports on the Sea- fisheries of 
the Province of Gothenburg and Bobus” 0 : 
Herr 
i n g - f i 
s li e r y 
with 
s e i 
n e s. 
gill- 
nets. 
drift 
-nets. 
Hectolitres. 
Value. 
Hectolitres. 
Value. 
No. of fish. 
Value. 
1891—92 
1,403,438 
£59,493 
228,708 
£65,453 
5,254,560 
£5,373 
1890—91 
1,094,185 
£65,115 
196,821 
£49,288 
9,651,360 
£5,676 
1889—90.... 
1,538,046 
£30,334 
223,102 
£39,394 
— 
£7,706 
1888—89.. 
1,443,390 
£28,535 
279,089 
£24,380 
— 
£4,788 
The value of the Halland Herring-fishery for the I spector of Fisheries, at £3,272, and for the year 1891 
year 1890 is estimated by Mr. Tkybom, Assistant In- | at £3,660. The Herring-fishery of Denmark yielded in 
a For a more minute description of the drift-net see Holdswokth, Deep-Sea Fishing and Fishing Boats , p. 100; Lundberg, Meddel. 
rorande Sveriges Fiskerier, Haft. I, p. 33, with illustr. 
6 At the Fisheries Exhibition (London, 1883) a net of this kind, coining from Cornwall, was catalogued as original. 
c These reports do not take into account that portion of the fishery which falls to the share of fishermen from Halland. 
