For The Second Time Every Thing Is
Taken From Her; And Not Until She Has A Third Time Lined The Nest
With Her Down Is The Eider-Duck Left In Peace.
The down of the
second, and that of the third quality especially, are much lighter
than that of the first.
I also was sufficiently cruel to take a few
eggs and some down out of several of the nests. {34}
I did not witness the dangerous operation of collecting this down
from between the clefts of rocks and from unapproachable precipices,
where people are let down, or to which they are drawn up, by ropes,
at peril of their lives. There are, however, none of these break-
neck places in the neighbourhood of Reikjavik.
SALMON FISHERY.
I made another excursion to a very short distance (two miles) from
Reikjavik, in the company of Herr Bernhoft and his daughter, to the
Laxselv (salmon river) to witness the salmon-fishing, which takes
place every week from the middle of June to the middle of August.
It is conducted in a very simple manner. The fish come up the river
in the spawning season; the stream is then dammed up with several
walls of stone loosely piled to the height of some three feet; and
the retreat of the fish to the sea is thus cut off. When the day
arrives on which the salmon are to be caught, a net is spread behind
each of these walls. Three or four such dams are erected at
intervals, of from eighty to a hundred paces, so that even if the
fishes escape one barrier, they are generally caught at the next.
The water is now made to run off as much as possible; the poor
salmon dart to and fro, becoming every moment more and more aware of
the sinking of the water, and crowd to the weirs, cutting themselves
by contact with the sharp stones of which they are built.
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