NOKWEGIAN INVESTIGATIONS 85 



the Skagerrak and the North Sea. They had before them, not 

 only the statistics of the catches of regular trawlers, but also the 

 haddock caught during six hundred experiments by research 

 steamers with trawls of the same dimensions. All the material 

 collected was placed at the disposition of English and German 

 scientists. 



The Michael Sars also collected haddock from every part of 

 the North Sea. 



The examination'of this wealth of material led to the following 

 discoveries : 



1. Dogger Bank haddock will run larger than haddock 

 caught in the same month on the deeper banks in the northern 

 portion of the North Sea. 



2. In the year 1904, both in the North Sea and in the 

 Skagerrak, the ' small ' haddock (i. e. those hatched in 1902 

 and 1903) were very scarce indeed ; in 1906 large numbers of 

 two-year-old haddock^ born in 1904 were caught. In other 

 words, very few fish were hatched in 1902 and 1903, and when 

 they were two years old they were much smaller than fish of 

 the same age caught in 1906. These facts seem to tally with the 

 shortage of eggs collected by the American spawn-takers in 

 certain years {v. supra, p. 79). 



3. The six hmidred experiments all over the North Sea and 

 the Norwegians' own experiments ahke showed that there was 

 ' a preponderating quantity of younger fish of IJ to 2 J years 

 old ' (8 to 12 inches), and that fish older than this were much 

 less aloundant. In most waters only one or two broods oj mature 

 haddock are jound. 



Hjort is convinced, and every trawler owner will be convinced 

 with him, that these experiments give a much truer picture of the 

 state of the haddock stock than do statistics of landings. As 

 Hjort says, fishermen lay themselves out to catch big fish ; they 

 make for the grounds where they know the fish run large, and, 

 he might have added, they throw away a very large number 

 of small haddock. So the English statistics of small haddock 

 landed mean really very little in the eyes of any one who has 

 studied the trawl-fishing at sea. If haddock spawn for the 

 first time in their third and fourth year, it is reasonable to 

 conclude that regular trawlers haul up on deck more immature 

 than mature haddock. Whether the&3 young fish come to 

 market or go overboard (usually dead) depends whether the 

 skipper knows that there is a demand for small fish, and whether 

 he~ thinks he can fill up with bigger ones. 



1 Garstang had found them the year before (1905) on the Dogger. See 

 Chapter XV, p. 80. 



