258 SALT-WATER FISHES 



waters about the beginning of the year, and our own authori- 

 ties are, at any rate, agreed that it must spawn earlier than 

 most of the family. During the Irish survey one of the ship's 

 officers thought he saw a large squid chasing a shoal of young 

 poutassou about 6 in. long. This was thirty-four miles off" 

 Achill Head, and some of the frightened little fish were without 

 difficulty taken in the tow-net, and were found to be feeding 

 on copepoda. 



We now come to the second group of the cod family, 

 represented in our seas by three fish, the Hake, the Ling, 

 and the Lesser Ling. These are all long in the body, and 

 have but two fins on the upper and one on the lower edge 

 of the body. 



The Hake {Merluccius vulgaris') is generally regarded as 

 a surface fish, but that it can also reside at considerable 

 depths is proved by the fact of its having been trawled at 

 over 300 fathoms in the Gulf of Gascony and over 600 

 elsewhere.* As a general rule, however, it is a typical 

 surface fish, pursuing the pilchard and mackerel and dashing 

 among the shoals in its nocturnal raids in a manner that has 

 a remarkable effx^ct when heard in the darkness from the 

 deck of a pilchard boat. 



The " periodicity " of the hake has already been referred 

 to. It is one of those fish which come and go in a given 

 locality without any rule, or indeed without much apparent 

 reason at times. Its distribution in our seas is, bearing this 

 peculiarity in mind, general. In some years it has been very 

 plentiful on the south-west coast, but it is also found in the 

 North Sea, particularly in winter. It appears to range over 

 the colder northern and warmer southern seas alike. Of 

 late years, however, the number of hake on the coast ot 

 Devon and Cornwall has shown considerable falling-oflF. 

 When, in the summer of 1901, the writer was engaged on 

 * See Expid. Scientif. dii Travailleur et Talisman, p. 302. 



