COMMON EEL. 
1 035 
( dlkupor , fig. 278) are set, constructed on the same 
principle as mjcirdar (see above, p. 32), but triangular, 
woven with osiers or thin deal splinters, and with a 
round wooden plug to stop the opening at the narrow 
end. With the setting of Eel-lines all our readers are, 
no doubt, familiar. They may be baited with fish, if 
possible alive, shrimps, or worms. Eels may also be 
taken with an ordinary hand-line, baited with worms 
or fish-offal — pyloric appendages are best — but the 
bait must lie on the bottom. With the Eel-spear (Iju- 
in the bottom ( harkning , hutt'ning, or puttning), doing 
more harm than the catch can repay. In Germany and 
Denmark much use is made of the so-called al-vad 
(Eel-seine), either the drif-vad (drift-seine, Germ. Zee- 
sen), a net for bottom-fishing, plied from a sailing-boat, 
and with a double bag as in the trawl, or the handvad 
( pidsvad , bott-vad, ankar^vad, or snurre-vad ), manipulated 
from a rowboat, and with a simple bag. Large or small 
seines ( strandvadar ) are also drawn from the shore. Or 
the fishermen wade out with an alglip, a square scoop- 
Fig. 281. Different methods of setting alhomtHor, A, from the Province of Calmar; B. from Blekinge and Eastern Scania. After Lundberg. 
ster, fig. 279) much Eel is caught, both in winter and 
summer. Where the Eel lies hidden in the mud, or 
among the grass or weed, air-bubbles rise to the sur- 
face. In winter these bubbles stop under the ice, and 
show the fisherman where to strike; in summer he 
watches for them in smooth inlets, or where the current 
is not strong, and there the Eel lies of a morning, with 
its head turned towards the sun. The fisherman thus 
knows where to plunge his spear so as to transfix the 
Eel, even without seeing it. In many places, as in the 
island-belt of Blekinge", the Eel-spearer strikes blindly 
net, which one of them holds on the bottom, while the 
other splashes in front of him, to drive the Eels into 
the net. But the most valuable Eel-fisheries depend on 
the migrations of the Eel in the sea. In Denmark Eel- 
weirs ( algardar ) have been constructed from prehistoric 
times. These are rows of stakes, or fences woven with 
brush (fig. 280), running straight out from the beach, 
and with an al-ryssja (liomma) at the outer end. Or 
there, as on the Swedish coast, only biommor are used, 
set singly or in a row, one outside the other (fig. 281). 
These constructions have conferred names on the mi- 
See Forslag till ny fslceristadga, Stockh. 1883, p. 94. 
