owing
winter. No one knows where they come from or where they go."

One of the men observed: "I have been a fisherman for over forty years,
and it is wonderful how regularly the cod make their appearance on the
fishing banks. We depend so much on their time of coming that we leave
home every year at the same date. They must know their way in the ocean
and recognize different marks on their journey, for they have to travel
thousands of miles before they return to the fishing banks to spawn. The
cod in their migration leave behind them a great many stragglers, which
are caught all the year round. The number of cod caught on the banks of
Finmarken and of the Lofoden Islands averages about forty to forty-two
millions a year, and the total catch along the coasts of Norway amounts
to about fifty millions a year. The land is barren, and if it were not
for the fish we could not live in our country."

"Fifty millions of cod is a great number," I observed.

"Yes," he replied, "but these fifty millions are nothing but a small
fraction compared with the great number that are not caught."

After our talk on the cod was finished, Captain Ericksen spoke about
herrings as follows: "If the number of codfish caught is great, the
number of herring is far greater. The herrings make their appearance in
immense shoals, and it is beyond the power and calculation of man to
guess their number, for their millions are countless. The migration of
the herring is often very irregular. They appear generally from January
to March. The herring are known to have disappeared for years in some
districts, then suddenly reappear."

"That is strange," I said. "Can you account for that?"

"No," the captain replied; "if I were a herring I probably could tell."
We all laughed when he said this.

I remarked: "The number of Norwegian fishing boats is so great, how do
you know when some are missing and have foundered at sea?"

Captain Ericksen replied: "Every fishing district has its own letter on
each boat belonging to it, and a number, and the name of every man
composing its crew is registered; also his residence, the day of his
birth, etc. This is necessary, for every year some poor fisherman's boat
is lost and the crew drowned; thus the boat and crew missing can be
identified. All the Norwegian men you see at the fisheries have
homes--humble it is true--either on the fjords, by the coast, or on some
little islands where there are a few patches of land