CAXADIAX FISHERIES EXPEDlTTOy. lOl'rlo 



127 



Table 9. — Showing age distribution in samples from Cape Breton, north side. New 

 growth probably not commenced, so that group 4 should correspond to year-class 

 1910, in the 1914 sample, and to year-class 1911 in the samples from 1915. 



Lo ty and date. 



Main-a-Dieu, May 1914 



North Sydney, June 3, 1915... 

 Grand Narrows, .Tune 2, 1915. 



Number 



of 



individuals. 



54 



98 

 88 



Age-groups. 



1-9 

 5 1 



18 2 



9-3 

 12 2 

 27-3 



3 7 

 01 

 91 



HI 



24 5 



4-5 



7 4 



10 2 

 10 2 



9 10 11 12 More 



7-4 



8-2 



10 2 



14 8 

 10 

 3 4 



31-5 

 17 3 

 12 5 



7 4 



12-2 



2 3 



4 6 

 2 

 2 2 



The sample from Main-a-Dieu, 1914, and that from North Sydney, 1915, have this 

 point in common, that groups 10 and 11 in 1914 and groups 11 and 12 in 1915 contain 

 a relatively large number of specimens. These should presumably be the 1904 and 

 1903 year-classes. The similarity is not, it is true, either here or elsewhere, remarkably 

 great, but we have to consider the small number of individuals in the one sample. 

 The sample from Grand Narrows has, like that taken at the same time from North 

 Sydney, a large number of fish with five rings, but diifers not a little from this ; there 

 is, however, here again some massing of the 11 and 12 group fish. 



4^ S 6 

 Age group 



10 11 12 13 Vt 15 16 17 18 19 



Fig. 36. 



On the other hand, if we compare the sample from North Sydney with the one 

 divergent sample from the Newfoundland area, taken a week earlier, we find the most 

 perfect agreement. The curves for these two samples will be seen in fig. 36. The 

 striking agreement between these two samples, on the one hand, and the exceptional 

 position occupied by the Newfoundland sample among the remainder from that area, 

 on the other, greatly tend to support the presumption that these two samples represent 

 one and the same group of herring, in which the age-comix)sition is widely ditferent 

 from that of the Newfoundland fish. The two samples in question will therefore be 

 more closely compared in the chapter on growth. 



