deck tow sheets, original records from the sorting laboratory, 

 cruise announcements, publications, header information on the 

 ichthyoplankton identification sheets, and station plots 

 generated for each cruise. Eventually all station and tow data 

 were checked by comparing these sources. 



The corrected ichthyoplankton data base was then examined 

 statistically and outliers were found and checked as above. 

 Distributional plots were then prepared for each taxon and these 

 were checked by reviewing the data sources mentioned above and by 

 examining archived specimens. A listing of each taxon by station 

 (Table 4) was produced, which became the primary document for 

 subsequent checks. Misidentif ications found in geographic 

 outlier checks and other misidentif ications and data problems 

 discovered in the course of examining archived samples resulted 

 in several iterations of Table 4. Finally, totals in Table 4 

 were checked against annual summaries of incidence and abundance 

 (Tables 2 and 3). Ecological analyses of the data (Moser et al., 

 1987) were conducted concurrently with editing procedures and 

 provided cross-checks that allowed correction of errors. 



SPECIES SUMMARY 



Larvae of northern anchovy, Engraulis mordax , represented 

 44.8% of all fish larvae taken on CalCOFI cruises during 1958 and 

 numbered three and one-half times as many as Vinciguerria 

 lucetia, a midwater gonostomatid, the next most abundant species 

 with 12.8% (Tables 2 and 3). These species ranked 2nd and 1st in 

 occurrences, respectively. The third most abundant species, 

 Pacific hake, Merluccius productus , constituted 12.7% of all 

 larvae and ranked 5th in occurrence. Larvae of Sebastes spp. , a 

 composite of about 70 species, ranked 4th in abundance and 

 occurrence. Two midwater lanternf ishes, Triphoturus mexicanus 

 and Stenobrachius leucopsarus , ranked 5th and 6th in abundance 

 and 3rd and 9th in occurrence. Larvae of Pacific sardine, 

 Sardinops sagax , ranked 7th in abundance but only 18th in 

 occurrence, indicating relatively large sample sizes. A deepsea 

 smelt, Bathylagus wesethi , ranked 8th in both abundance and 

 occurrence. Another lanternf ish, Diogenichthys laternatus , and 

 jack mackerel, Trachurus symmetricus , ranked 9th and 10th in 

 abundance and 6th and 12th in occurrence. These 10 top-ranking 

 taxa contributed 88.7% of all larvae taken during 1958. The 

 remaining 11.3% was represented by 151 taxa plus the unidentified 

 and disintegrated categories. Of the 10 taxa, 5 were midwater 

 species, 3 were coastal pelagic species, and 2 were coastal 

 demersal species or generic groupings. 



EXPLANATION OF TABLES 



Table 1 - This table lists by cruise the pertinent station and 

 tow data for 1958, the volume of water filtered and 

 standard haul factor for each tow, the percent of 

 sample sorted, and the total numbers of fish eggs and 



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