BIGELOW: EXPLORATIONS OF THE COAST WATERS. 



255 



The stations, near land, or in shallow water, c. r/., on Georges Bank, 

 have usually yielded fish eggs, sometimes in large numbers. But we 

 have fountl very few in the deep offshore parts of the Gulf, except off 

 the slope of German Bank (Station 10270) and in the Eastern Basin 

 (Station 10249 in 1914, 10304, in 1915). This was especially the case 

 in May and June, when no fish eggs of any species were taken in the 

 central parts of the Gulf, or on the outer part of the shelf off Nova 

 Scotia; and though the barren area is reduced in midsummer, by 

 the occurrence of eggs in the Western and Eastern Basins, we have 

 never found a single fish egg in the central or southern deeps of the 

 Gulf, or in the Eastern Channel (Stations 10225, 10227, 10255 in 1914; 

 Stations 10268, 10269,. 10298, 10299, 10308, 10309 in 1915); and 

 pelagic fish eggs are usually so rare anywhere in the Gulf over water 

 deeper than 100 meters, even, including the narrow trough north 

 of Cape Ann (Stations 10278, 10325), that very few can be spawned 

 anywhere in the Gulf except along the shallow coastal zone. But the 

 shallow waters of Georges Bank are certainly an important, perhaps 

 our most important, spawning ground for Haddock in spring (1914b); 

 and this is probably true for Brown's Bank also, although we have 

 found very few eggs there in summer. 



So much discussion has centered around the quantitative occurrence 

 of pelagic fish eggs, as the basis for a census of the fish population of 

 the North Sea, (Johnstone, 1908) that particular attention was paid 

 to this subject during the cruises of 1914 and 1915. 



In 1914 the results of the quantitative hauls were as follows:: — 



