of critical comparisons. More sophisticated statisti- 

 cal methods, which implicitly take the sample size in- 

 to consideration but which require stronger adherence 

 to the assumptions of the exponential model, are dis- 

 cussed in Hoenig and Lawing (1982) and Hoenig 

 (1983). 



Acknowledgments 



Saul Saila, William Lawing, and Michael Sissen- 

 wine made helpful comments on an earlier draft of 

 this manuscript. Malcolm Champlin suggested the 

 approximation in Appendix A. Susan Clements- 

 Proulx and Pat Aldrich typed the manuscript. I would 

 also like to thank Lynn Goodwin for generously pro- 

 viding unpublished data on the geoduck clam. The 

 anonymous reviewers made helpful comments. 



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John M. Hoenig 

 I 'niversity of Rhode Island 

 (iraduate School of Oceanography 

 N'arragansett, HI 02882-1197 



Present address: Minnesota Department of Natural Resources 

 Section of Fisheries 

 Box 12, Centennial Office Building 

 St Paul MN 55155 



APPENDIX A 



Relationship Between Maximum 

 Observed Age and Sample Size 



Assume that life duration follows a two- parameter 

 exponential distribution with probability density 

 function 



f(t) = Ze- z "-'c> 



where Z is the instantaneous mortality rate, £ is age, 

 and t v is the youngest age fully represented in the 

 catch. Also assume a stable age distribution (i.e., that 

 recruitment is continuous and constant). Under 

 these restrictive conditions, the expected value of the 

 maximum age in a sample of size n is given by 

 (Johnson and Kotz 1970: 216) 



E(t m J=jr Z ±+t c 



(1) 



902 



