1036 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
grating - Eels, gard-al in Denmark, hom-al in Sweden. 
The hommor a are one-armed or two-armed, furnished 
in the latter case with a long arm and a short one, the 
former (the leader or lang-arm ) to guide the Eel into 
the homma itself ( halt ), the latter (the check-arm or 
gin-arm ) to head off the fish and prevent them from 
passing the opening. At the outer end of the liomma 
an Eel-basket ( kass'e or tina) is set, out of which the 
Eel cannot creep back. The whole engine is firmly 
anchored to the bottom with large stones, and the bas- 
ket is secured in a sled-shaped wooden frame. When 
the Eel, on its migration along the east coast of Swe- 
den, comes from the north and north-east, along the 
south coast from the east, and in the Sound from the 
south, the hommor must be placed with the opening on 
that side of the leader from which the Eel approaches. 
The same rule applies, of course, to the position of the 
al-ryssja at the outer end of the Eel-weirs, where the 
weir may be lengthened by setting more ryssjor outside. 
The season lasts through the closing months of the 
year, dark and stormy nights and land-winds being 
most favourable to the fishery. Most of the Eels taken 
on the east coast of Sweden are sold alive to Germans 
who sail in their well-boats ( qvasar ) along the coast, 
buying up the supply. 
The value of the Eel-fisheries in Scania and Ble- 
kinge, according to Lundbeeg 6 , was in the years 
1882 £8,240, 
1883 £11,604, 
1884 £15,691, 
1885 £14,846, 
the price fetched in Scania being about Is. Id., in Ble- 
kinge about 10V 2 d. per kilo. The statistics of the 
Eel-fisheries in other parts of Sweden are extremely 
defective; but we probably do not exaggerate in assu- 
ming that the Eel affords our country an average an- 
nual income of between £16,500 and £’22,000. In 
Denmark the Eel-fishery is still more productive, and 
its combined annual value in the two countries certainly 
exceeds £55,000. 
Genus CONGER. 
No scales in the skin. One row of jaw-teeth larger than the rest and transversely compressed at the base, but more or 
less sharpened at the tip in the longitudinal direction of the jaws. Vomerine teeth set in a card containing several rows. 
Fig. 282. Bones of the head in a Conger ( Conger niger ). 
alsp, alisphenoid; art, articular part of the lower jaw; bsp, basispheuoid ; cell , ceratohyoid; ceth, cartilaginous parts of the ethmoids; d, dental 
part of the lower jaw; et, ethmoid; fr , frontal; Inn, hyomandibular ; top, interoperculum; mp, maxillary (maxillo-palatine) ; op, operculum; 
pob, preorbital (first suborbital); pop, preoperculum; psp, parasphenoid ; pt, ento pterygoid; qu, quadrate; R. br. I — IX, first — ninth branchio- 
stegal rays; sob, hindmost suborbital bone; sop , suboperculum; spet, supraethmoidal (nasal); spho, postfrontal (sphenotic) ; 
squ, squamosal; uh, urohyoid. 
a A minute description of this fishery may be found in Lundberg, Orn dlfisket med s. k. hommor vid svenska Ostersjokusten saint 
Oresund, Landtbr. Akad. Handl. och Tidskr. 1881. 
6 Meddelanden rorande Sveriges Fiskerier, Part. II (1888). 
