262 



bulletin: museum of comparative zoology. 



f = 25-50; m = 100 +; m = 1000 +. 



10306, three eggs: Station 10323, one egg), although hauls of this 

 type were made at seven more stations where they did occur in the 

 surface hauls; and this agrees with the general experience that vertical 

 hauls with small nets are of little value where the number of fish eggs 

 present is less than fifty or so per square meter (p. 256). 



Our records are too scanty to show whether spawning is fairly 

 uniform all along the coastal zone, or is limited to particular grounds, 

 as is the case with Cod off Nor^^ay (Hjort, 1914). 



Squirrel Hake Eggs. — Very little is known about the eggs, or young, 

 of species of Urophycis in the eastern Atlantic (Ehrenbaum, 1905-1909, 

 p. 275); and though it is a far more important genus economically 

 in American than in European waters, its pelagic eggs have only 

 once been recognized off our coast, /. e. during the Grampus cruise 

 of 1912 (1914a, p. 100). The identification, in that case, rested on 

 comparison with ripe eggs taken from Squirrel Hakes (Uroj^kycis 

 chus) caught near by, and fertilized on board ship. But only newl^ 

 spawned eggs were seen, hence the recent success of the Gloucester 

 Hatchery of the Bureau of Fisheries in not only artificially fertilizing, 

 but hatching, the eggs of this species, is very timely. 



Squirrel Hake eggs, in different stages received from the hatchery, 

 may be described briefly as follows : — they are small, ranging in 

 diameter from .7 to .75 mm. Shortly after fertilization there are 

 usually many small oil-globules; but these coalesce, until at 26 hours, 

 (at a temperature of 15.5° C.) there is usually one large oil-globule, 

 about .15-^.17 mm. in diameter, with two or three tiny ones close 

 beside it: occasionally, however, there is only one oil-globule at this 



