584 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



As the fish run in on the beach, either two males may squeeze a female between 

 them or a single male may keep in close contact with a female. The spawning trios or 

 pairs, having run up the beach as far as they can, deposit their sperm and eggs and then 

 separate to regain deeper water again if they be fortunate; so many of them are not 

 that the beaches where Capelin are spawning usually are lined with windrows of dead 

 fish. Thus Anthonie Parkhurst described them as early as 1600 as "driven drie by the 

 surge of the Sea . . . you can take up with a shove-net as plentifully as you do wheate in 

 a shovell" (/'« J5: 133)- The mass strandings of Capelin have been described repeatedly 

 since then, as by Anspach in 18 19 for Conception Bay (2: 400). Even if the Capelin 

 do escape in the wash of the waves, they are so exhausted and the fins of the males so 

 battered that multitudes of the dead and dying are to be seen floating close inshore. 

 It appears that nearly all of those remaining must perish soon thereafter, so unusual is 

 it for a Capelin to spawn more than once during its lifetime. 



Spawning is said to take place chiefly in cloudy weather or at night, without regard 

 for the stage of the tide, and it is likely that the course of events is similar for Capelin 

 that spawn in deeper water where they do not come under direct observation. 



The eggs spawned on the beach are soon mixed with gravel by the waves, resulting 

 in "a quivering mass of gravel and attached eggs" (Templeman, no: 41). But mul- 

 titudes of those that have failed to adhere there drift offshore to sink to the bottom, 

 where they too stick to anything with which they come in contact, often massing on 

 nets and anchor lines. 



Relation of Spawning to Temperature. In Newfoundland coastal waters, the Capelin 

 spawn chiefly when and where the temperature Is between 6° and about 8 or 9° C, but 

 never in water warmer than about 10.5°; on the Grand Bank they spawn at 2.8 — 

 4.7° C {100 \ llO\ 8j), along western Greenland in water as cold as 3— 5°C,^^ and 

 in the Barents Sea at 2° (8l: 29-33). 



Habits and Migrations. The migratory pattern of the Capelin consists essentially 

 of a passive dispersal of the larvae followed by the wanderings of the juveniles in search 

 of food; this tends to bring them inshore and near the surface in early summer but 

 offshore and into deeper water in autumn, leading finally to the inshore migration of 

 the mature or maturing fish toward their spawning grounds in spring and summer. 



There is no direct evidence from actual captures that Capelin as a whole spread 

 very far during their period of growth, at least in the western side of the Atlantic. 

 The greatest distance from land where immature fish have actually been taken, off 

 Labrador or Newfoundland, is only about 75 miles for fry small enough to have been 

 picked up in tow nets, and 1 50 miles for larger (hence older) juveniles trawled at or 

 near the bottom (p. 585, Fig. 137). Around Iceland, where young fry abound close 

 inshore, Jespersen has recorded captures of fry 60-70 miles offshore to the west, 

 with a few taken at distances up to 200 miles or so toward the southeast {50: 12, 



from the earlier accounts by Chappell {i2: 1 31-134), as Kendall {55: 29) and Hardy {38: 4-8) have pointed out. 

 For recent accounts, see Sleggs {100: 38-40) and Templeman {no: 32-39). 

 36. Information contributed by A.Vedel Taning. 



