THE S:\rALL GAME OF THE SEA 191 



seas. In tho central — and coldest — portions of this area are 

 animals ^Yhich for the most part are found also all round the 

 coasts ; hut numbers of coastal forms — and especially* the 

 shallow-water forms — do not inhabit the central banks at all '. 

 On the western edge of the Shetland Banks the Michael Sars 

 found a temperature of over 48° F. at a depth of 164 fathoms. 

 This is a good deal warmer than the southern North Sea in 

 winter, and the high temperature is probably due to the Gulf 

 Stream. Here, in deep water, British investigators had located 

 certain ' southern ' animals from the Mediterranean and the 

 Atlantic as early as 18GS. Some of these animals find their way 

 along the east coast of Scotland and England, but do not spread 

 eastwards. These ' southern ' forms, although they occur, do not, 

 of course, preponderate off Shetland. Most of the animals here 

 are, in fact, ' northern ' forms identical with those found among 

 the islands off the west coast of Norway. 



CORRIGENDUM. 

 P. 191, 1. 40. 



This sentence should run :— ' turning north-east just before reaching 

 the Dogger Bank, and afterwards sweeping northwards on reaching the 

 edge of the Norwegian depression.' 



Ocean Research. 



Even this very condensed summary will be enough to suggest 

 to any trawlerman that fishes are distributed very much as is 

 the ' small game ', and to suggest reasons for certain puzzles 

 like the appearance of hake in the North Sea. As Hjort puts 

 it : ' Helland-Hansen has shown that in the deeper layers there 

 is a circular current of Atlantic water in the North Sea, a branch 

 of the Gulf Stream following the east coast of Scotland, turning 

 north-east just before reaching the edge of the Norwegian 

 depression.' The latter is, in parenthesis, the deep narrow 

 trench more than 110 fathoms below the surface which runs 

 parallel to the south-west Norwegian coast from the latitude 

 of Stat to the Skagerrak. ' As a result the periphery of the 

 central portion of the North Sea is bathed by water of much the 



