124 DR. LE DANOIS ON HAKE 



Then, in June, Hjort and Le Danois and Herubel tell us, 

 a submarine current sets in between the Shetlands and Fair 

 Island which carries the warm water from the Atlantic and 

 Mediterranean into and round the outer periphery of the 

 North Sea. A warm current flows down the east coast of 

 Scotland, turns north-east just before reaching the Dogger, 

 and finally sweeps northwards along the edge of the ' Norw^egian 

 dike '. In this current the hake find themselves at home, and 

 from it they are captured from June to November. Then 

 a cold current from the Norwegian Sea heads back the Atlantic 

 water, the North Sea becomes too cold for hake and they 

 leave ^ — possibly to find the temperature which pleases them 

 in depths as great as 270 or 550 fathoms on the edge of the 

 Continental shelf. 



Obviously in tropical seas — except in winter — the hake in 

 its search for the ideal temperature of 48° to 50° must avoid 

 the surface. And this accounts for the capture of a specimen 

 at 328 fathoms off the coast of French Guinea by the French 

 research vessels Talisman and Travailleur in 1882. 



All this has been put down in detail because the writer has 

 often heard protests among business men at the absorption of 

 scientific men in the ' physico-chemistry ' or ' bio-chemistry ' 

 of the ocean. ' Why don't they tell us the effect of temperature 

 on hake and how to find them ? ' That is exactly what 

 scientists are aiming to do. But it has never occurred to 

 Science (till Hjort and Le Danois wrote) to explain to the 

 uninitiated what ' physico-chemistry ' meant, or its bearing 

 on the art of catching fish. 



Food of Adult Hake 



Le Danois calls the hake ' the Pike of the Sea '. We have 

 seen that it hunts herrings and mackerel and their young. 

 Like the pike, it is an inveterate cannibal, and it seems probable 

 that it continues to feed to some extent right through the 

 spawning season. 



As a rule, the grounds which it affects are sandy or gravelly, 

 but on the edge of the Continental shelf it is found in the 

 midst of the ' false corals ' or ' soft corals ' Hke Dead Men's 

 Fingers {Alcyonium) , which flourish on beds of empty scallop 

 and cockle shells, and among starfish, sea-urchins, and other 

 invertebrates. 



The Eggs 



The eggs measure 0-03 inch,^ and are provided with an oil 



^ January and February and March are months in which practically no 

 hake are found in the North Sea (Bowman). 



^ i. c. about 1,140,000 hake eggs arc contained in a quart. 



