PREFACE vii 



On the spawning, the eggs, and the young stages of food- and other fishes, import- 

 ant observations were made. Mr. Danneviig's report on the material obtained is 

 exceedingly interesting. Thirty-six species were determined, which belong to twenty 

 families, the cod being most important, and its eggs and larvae occurred during a long 

 period, May to August. Haddock were more rare, one egg only being secured in the 

 gulf of St. Lawrence. Nor were mackerel egg numerous, while very few flat-fish eggs, 

 or young, were found, excepting the Canadian Plaice. 



The eggs and young of fishes and other animal forms constitute an important 

 part of the plankton, but the scarcity of these eggs and young is a striking feature. 

 Over the northern portions of the gulf, there occurred, in May and June, eggs of cod 

 and other gadoids, also flatfishes, and in a marked degree the eggs of the Canadian 

 plaice {Rippoglossoides, or Drepanopsetta) , with a few larval fish of Arctic types such 

 as the northern wolf -fish (Anarrichas latifrons), capelin (Mallotus), and others. 

 Mackerel eggs were taken in Cabot straits, and considerable quantities of Norway 

 haddock or rose fish (Sehastes) over the deep (Laurentian) channel leading from the 

 gulf into the open ocean. Expectations of greater quantities of floating fish eggs, in 

 the later summer cruises, were disappointed. Cod eggs occurred, and a very small 

 number of young fish, while northern forms such as Mallotus, the capelin, occurred, 

 and the more southerly types such as mackerel and Sehastes, as before. Outside of 

 the gulf, cod eggs were scanty, but the whiting (Merluccius), sometimes called hake, 

 were plentiful. For this scarcity of eggs and young fry the usual explanation (as in 

 European waters) is that they are swept in vast quantities from the spawning and 

 hatching grounds, and may be scattered over vast distances outside the gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. There is no reason to suppose that after the huge schools of parent cod 

 have cast their eggs into the waters inside the gulf, they perish, although the tempera- 

 ture may be as low as the freezing point, or lower, 31° to 32°F. ( — 1-a to 0°C.). in 

 Europe, floating eggs such as those of the cod rarely occur in water under 35° or 36° F., 

 but the fishing experiments in the gulf of St. Lawrence showed cod to be abundant 

 in the vast cold water layers immediately above the bottom, and the eggs are deposited 

 under these frigid conditions, and undergo their early stages of development there. 

 It is truly a remarkable result of Dr. Hjort's Canadian researches to find (as he 

 states), " cod spawning on the floor of the banks in water of absolutely Arctic tempera- 

 ture," while at the surface, immediately overhead, more southern forms, such as the 

 mackerel, also spawn. 



Dr. Huntsman's interesting quantitative and qualitative plankton research con- 

 firms the observations, made during the expedition, that the minute floating life in 

 the Canadian Atlantic waters is more abundant in colder water and where the water 

 is deep, while on the whole, these myriads of small living organisms are at a deeper 

 level during the day than during the night. 



Professor Willey and Dr. Huntsman made a study of special plankton groups, 

 the former reporting on the Copepods, the latter on the Chaetognatlis, and their reports 

 demonstrate a remarkable agreement between distribution and the various water layers 

 so exhaustively treated by Mr. Sandstrom in his elaborate report on the hydrodynamics 

 of the waters investigated, and by Mr. Paul Bjerkan in his very thorough hydro- 

 graphic investigations, including the distribution of temperature and salinity. The 

 former reports on the phyics of the sea — too technical and detailed to summarize, 

 but the presence of a great cold intermediate layer is a striking feature, and due, as 

 pointed out in the report, to ice melting in the gulf or even in the more northerly 

 Arctic areas, probably as distant as Greenland. The earth's rotation causes it to tend 

 to the east, or right, and forces it out via cape North into the open ocean. 



The salinity features of the gulf and coastal waters, as determined by ^Ir. 

 Bjerkan, are of peculiar interest. The outflow of relatively fresh water from the 

 superficial layers in the gulf is more marked in summer than in spring, and one of 

 its effects is to force seawards, the superficial bank water of higher salinity, 33 to 33, 

 this influence being noted to a depth of 25 m., but the Salter water, deeper down. 



