880 



SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 



by whalers out at sea in the Arctic Ocean. Fabricils 

 states that at this time it is less rash than during the 

 spawning-season, and seeks to evade its pursuers by 

 lea|)ing out of the water. In some fjords it loiters 

 long after the spawning is over. Tliis has been ob- 

 served in the upper ])art of Varanger Fjord", and also 

 in St. Mary Baj' (Newfoundland), where, during the 

 wlutci'-tishery under the ice, Capelin just devoured 

 liave been found in the stomach of Cod taken in Janu- 

 ary''. It attracts all the more attention during the 

 spawning-season, when it gathers in immense shoals 

 and I'epairs to shallow water. This takes place gene- 

 rally late in winter and early in summer, off Norwe- 

 gian Finmark, according to Saks, in April, May, and 

 June, on the coast of Greenland, according to Fabki- 

 cius, in May, June, and July. But this rule is subject 

 to many irregularities, which are of importance not 

 only for the fishery, but also to slied light upon similar 

 variations in the appearance of the Herring. For se- 

 veral years, seemingly at periodic intex'vals, the Capelin 

 deserts its usual spawning-places; in other years it 

 comes at an unusual season, seemingly, as in the case 

 of tlie Herring, earlier at the beginning of a period. 

 Thus Sheriff Sommerfelt (1799) writes of the Capelin'', 

 "that else they have the experience here that it has 

 abandoned the coasts of F"inmark for many years, up 

 to 16 or 20, in succession"; and to the quintennial 

 reports of the sheriff' (1830 — 1840), according to which 

 the 'Capelin-fishery' (i. e. the Cod-fisliery with a bait 

 of Capelin) had not been practised on the coast of 

 Finmark, Juel appends the remark'': "As old fisher- 

 men state, hoAvever, the Capelin did appear off the 

 coast in one of these periods of five years, but came 

 early (in Decemljer) and departed in March, so that 

 no fisherman seized the opportunity. Sul:)secjuently the 

 Capelin came later and later in the year. ' Similar 

 irregularities meet us in the Herrings approach to the 

 coast. They very probably depend in an eminent 

 degree, as Sars assumed, on variations in the "])hysio- 

 meteorological conditions," perhaps too on variations in 



the supply of food and in the numbers of the Capelin's 

 enemies. P)ut as yet we can only record them among 

 the lessons of experience; their explanation we must 

 leave to future research. How important it would be 

 to Norway to ascertain the causes of these irregula- 

 rities, we may easily gather from the results of the 

 so-called Capelin-fishery, which depend on the said 

 irregularities, and wliicli in 187.3, according to Sars, 

 were estimated at nearly twenty million Cod, but in 

 some of the ])receding and the following years at only 

 five or six million. 



During its wanderings the shoal is incessantly 

 harassed by all kinds of enemies in searcli of food. 

 In their efforts to escape tlie Capelins crowd so close 

 together that tlie fish in the middle of the shoal are 

 even lifted above the surface, where they wildly lash J 

 about on the backs of those beneath them. When the il 

 weather is calm, the Capelin shoal looks like a tum- 

 bling, glittering wave on the surfiice. Above it hover 

 flocks of kittiwakes {Larus fridactj/lus), which time 

 after time swoop down and seize a tish; and round the 

 shoal blow whales (the common rorcpial, Balanoptera 

 museiihis, and the lesser rorqual, Balcenoptera rosfrafu'). 

 But the Capelin's most eager pursuers are Cod and 

 Coaltish'. Meanwhile the shoal makes for the coast, 

 which it follows till it finds a suitable S]ja.wning-place. 

 Often enough it comes so near land that the fish may 

 be scooped up in a hand-net from the beach, or even 

 leap ashore to escape their pursuers. As a rule they 

 swim against the wind, a sea-wind keeping them from 

 the coast, and a land-ln'eeze alluring them thither. 

 Enormous are the numbers in which the Capelin ap- 

 pears during these migrations, and many are the ac- 

 counts thereof. Thus Collett states that the Capelins 

 often spread in shoals many miles long, touching the J 

 coast almost simultaneously at the extreme end of I 

 Western Finmark and in Varanger Fjord. "The females 

 go first in a separate shoal," writes Fabkicius, "and seek 

 out places suital)le for their progenj'; the males follow and . 

 seek out the eggs, to impregnate them with their milt''. 



" Saus, Loildi-fiskcl ced Ftiimarken, liidbtT. Depart, f. li. Iiidre, 1879, p. 11. 

 '' Hind in Bean, I. c. 



' The quotation is tnkeii from -JuEi,, 1. c, p. 9. 

 "* L. c, p. 11. 



' These two according to Sars. According to Collett the Capelin is also eaten by tlie humpbacked whale {Megapti'va boops). 

 t Besides these, according to Collett, Anarrhichas minor and lupus, Hippogtossiis vulijaiis, and several more. 



^ According to Atwood (Proc. Bost. Soc. XIV (1872), ]>. 134) the males lead the way, and the females follow them to the spawning- 

 place, but in comparatively small numbers, one female to ten males. 



