248 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



found in the neighbourhood of the Shetlands from about 

 March to May. 



(3). Within our Scottish trawling area, approximately 

 bounded by the 100-fathom line, its habitat is confined to a 

 northerly belt, running from north of the Great Fisher Bank, 

 parallel to the Norwegian Rift, and round by the Shetlands 

 to the W. of Scotland and the Outer Hebrides; in which 

 last region it occurs about the month of September. 



(4). In Norway, besides its shallow-water spawning 

 grounds, it is also known to spawn in the deeper waters, 

 where the spawning season is known to continue at least till 

 August. Furthermore, it is known to breed in deep water 

 between the Faeroes and the Hebrides, and again off the 

 S.W. of Ireland, in which regions its eggs have been obtained 

 in July and November. How much earlier they may have 

 been laid we do not know. 



(5). Young examples (in one case very recently hatched) 

 have been found in deep water N.E. of the Shetlands, in 

 the Faeroe Channel, off the S.W. of Ireland, and in the 

 Bay of Biscay. 



(6). Off the S.W. of Ireland it has been taken most 

 abundantly in May. Its captures in summer and autumn 

 have been few; but there are indications of its resort to still 

 deeper waters in August and September. 



(7). From its occurrence more or less all the year round 

 off the S.W. of Ireland (and probably also off the Spanish 

 coast), we are precluded from supposing that the various 

 localities where it has been found lie on one continuous and 

 regular route of migration. We cannot correlate satisfactorily 

 what we know of it in Norway, in the northern North Sea 

 and off the Hebrides, with what we know of it in the Bay of 

 Biscay, the S.W. of Ireland and the Faeroe Channel. It 

 seems, on the whole, probable that in its more southern 

 and more western habitats its habits are different from those 

 in the North; that it is here confined to deeper waters 

 (seldom less than 100 or even 200 fathoms) ; but that it 

 tends to resort periodically to still deeper parts of the ocean 

 (of 500 to 600 fathoms or more), and that it is in these that, 

 in this portion of the range of the species, it chiefly spawns. 



