THE SCARCER FISHES OF THE ABERDEEN MARKET 45 



It is likewise an autumn or winter fish in Scandinavia; and 

 its occurrence there tends to be later the farther north we 

 go, or the farther we go from the Skagerack into the 

 narrow seas. The farthest north of all the Scandinavian 

 records is also the most belated, namely that at Altenfjord 

 in the month of January. The occurrences on the North 

 Sea coast of Jutland are also late in the year; but whether 

 the fish are likely to have come thither through the Channel 

 or round the N. of Scotland, is more than we can safely say. 

 According to Johansen, the Sun-fish which reach the Scandi- 

 navian coasts are often found dead or dying, and Mr George 

 Sim ( Vertebrates of the Dee, p. 266) makes precisely the 

 same remark regarding those found on the E. of Scotland ; 

 they never, or hardly ever, survive the "hydrographic 

 winter"; they are out of their proper element and in too 

 cold a sea. 



Dr Johansen draws the conclusion from such facts as 

 these that the Sun-fish is, so to speak, a passive migrant, 

 carried along by the ocean currents, with no effort or " proper 

 motion " of its own ; and he argues that the time taken by 

 it on its migration, say from the ocean to the Cattegat, 

 corresponds roughly to the time which would seem also to 

 be taken by the oceanic "plankton," or floating organisms 

 of the warmer currents. I hardly think that we have 

 evidence enough to substantiate Dr Johansen's conclusion. 

 The great Atlantic current of our western and north- 

 western coasts which we are accustomed to call (inaccurately) 

 the Gulf Stream, goes on all the while, and its periodic 

 fluctuations in intensity do not seem sufficient to account, 

 by themselves, for the appearance of certain organisms at 

 one season, and their disappearance at another. That the 

 Sun-fish, and many other fishes and other creatures, frequent 

 or inhabit the warmer and Salter waters of this current and 

 follow its branches, is undoubtedly true. But I am sure 

 that it is not possible to show that the times of arrival of 

 the Sun-fish coincide generally with the seasons of maximal 

 salinity or of maximal current. The course and seasons of 

 its migration seem plain enough ; that it is guided by the 

 current, and more or less confined within its boundaries, 



