92 



THE COD 



Bate of Growth 



The rate of growth varies greatly. In the south of the North 

 Sea they reach as much as 8 inches in their first year ; along 

 the Norwegian coast they are on the average about 3 inches at 

 the same age, and half that size in the Skagerrak. The food in 

 these stages consists of young shrimps and other minute 

 Crustacea. 



Scale Beading 



Apparently the North Sea cod-scales are not so easy to read 

 as those of the Norway coast. The winter rings are less clearly 

 marked because the check in the growth of the fish is less 

 severe. For the Norse fish, Hjort in 1914 gave a complete 

 scale of average growth as follows : 



Obviously the rate will be a good deal quicker in the south of 

 the North Sea on the average. Hjort notes that in the second 

 and third years cod continue to grow rapidly, and that from the 

 fifth year the winter rings become better marked. 



Maturity 



Maturity is reached occasionally in the second year, but not 

 as a rule till the fourth. Here again the variations are marked. 

 The North Sea spawners are seldom less than about 30 inches 

 long. In the Lofoten Islands the smallest spawners in 1907 

 were 27J inches long and six or seven years old ; the largest 

 46 inches and sixteen or seventeen years old. In the Danish 

 Belt fish are mature at 12 inches. 



Migrations 



The movements of the large cod round Iceland have been 

 noticed. Statistics of catch and marking experiments show 

 that the large cod congregate on the southern shallows of the 

 North Sea in winter, and leave in the summer for the deeper 

 waters towards the north ; they are caught off Finmark in the 

 summer, and on the Norwegian Spawning Banks in the winter. 



Towards the end of summer, on our east coast, the longshore- 

 men often begin to catch codling of half a pound to a pound ; 



