THE CATCH OF HAKE 115 



which are not its normal home, under the influences described, 

 would, if necessary, change its diet and eat what it could find. 

 This is what one would expect, certainly, of a fish like the hake 

 which has not undeservedly earned the name of ' sea-pike ' by 

 its voracity (Mr. Eees has taken twenty-four herrings out of 

 a hake of about 14 lb.). Moreover the intestine of the fish is 

 practically blocked when its genital glands are full of spawn 

 or milt, and it probably eats httle at these times. Thus we get 

 the first movement of the spawning shoals from the depths 

 which are their home to the warmer shallows where the density 

 of the water is less. This journey is one of concentration ; that 

 is to say a large number of fish crowd together in a small space 

 so as to ensure the fertihzation of their eggs. Then comes 

 a 'deployment ' at the end of the breeding season. The shoals 

 break up and return home to the deeps where they can find 

 plenty of food. 



Le Danois sums up thus : 



1. That hake are caught chiefly while they are actually 

 spawning, i.e. on the journey of concentration. At this time 

 they frequent w^aters of the temperate zone and middle depth. 



2. The normal home of the hake shoals when they are not 

 breeding is at greater depths, in waters which are colder and 

 more saline, and to the northivard of the spaivning grounds. 



3. The farther south, the earher the spawning schools will 

 appear. 



4. After the breeding season the hake disperse to look for 

 food on the bottoms where they reside between whiles. 



The writer would inquire whether, before the return journey 

 is carried out, the shoals do not linger — at any rate sometimes — 

 in shallow water, in ordei? to feed themselves up after the 

 exertions of spawning. The ' mending ' process might explain 

 the summer invasion of the North Sea^ — where (apparently) the 

 hake do not spawn — at any rate with any freedom, but where 

 they seem to ' shoal ' in pursuit of the herring from June till the 

 North Sea gets too cold for them in November. It might also 

 explain the extraordinary raid on the mackerel of the south 

 coast of Ireland made by hake this w^inter (1920). 



This ' recuperative ' journey would naturally depend largely 

 on the movements of the herrings and such other ' game ' as 

 the exhausted hake prescribed as their dietary ! 



^ Dr. Bowman has ' never seen a female hake with the eggs in the ovaries 

 fully developed and ready for extrusion ' landed at Aberdeen, though " the 

 invading hake are all well-grown fish, many with maturing sexual organs *. 

 So the writer's amateur hypothesis must be abandoned ! 



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