PELAGIC ANIMAL LIFE 649 



fished and salted in barrels for bait in the cod-fisheries, being 

 usually captured at dusk or during the night by the aid of 

 minute grapnels, several large hooks tied around a cylindrical 

 piece of lead, baited with a herring and lowered to a suitable 

 depth. The species is known outside Norway from the Skager- 

 rack, the Faroe Islands, and Iceland, as well as from the west 

 coast of France and the Mediterranean." 



While fishing on the slopes of the coast banks one often 

 finds this squid in the stomachs of cod, and repeatedly I have 

 had occasion to make most interesting notes as to the occurrence 

 of this species in the open sea far from land. One night we 

 were hauling long lines on the Faroe slope, working with an 

 electric lamp hanging over the side in order to see the line, 

 when like lightning fiashes one squid after another shot 

 towards the light ; on the same occasion the beaks of these 

 animals were found in the stomachs of the captured fish. In 

 October 1902 we were one night steaming outside the slopes 

 of the coast banks of Norway, and for many miles we could see 

 the squids moving in the surface waters like luminous bubbles, re- 

 sembling large milky white electric lamps being constantly lit and 

 extinguished ; with a hand-line we captured several specimens. 

 The existence of such numbers of squids in the open sea must 

 undoubtedly be considered a very important item in the fauna. 



Squids occur very abundantly also in the western part of 

 the Norwegian Sea, where the small "bottle-nose" whale is 

 captured by whalers during spring and summer. I have tried The"bottk 

 to obtain reliable information as to where this whaling goes on, '^"^'^ ^^^^^ 

 and on the basis of this information I have prepared a chart 

 (Fig. 483); each dot signifies a place where several whales 

 have been observed or shot. The chart brings out the peculiar 

 fact that all the localities are situated on the western side of 

 the Gulf Stream water in the Norwegian Sea, i.e. in the transi- 

 tion belt between the Arctic and Atlantic currents. We gather 

 from this chart that in April and May the "bottle-nose" is 

 widely distributed over this part of the Norwegian Sea ; in July 

 the whaling ceases, and in September the inhabitants of the 

 Faroe Islands get their last " bottle-nose." These whales are 

 never, or only on extremely rare occasions, observed or shot on 

 the coast banks, and thus they do not enter the Barents Sea, but, 

 according to an experienced whaler, they follow the 800-fathoms 

 line. 



I have succeeded in obtaining information as to the stomach- 

 contents of the "bottle-nose"; these consist mainly of the 



