78 



Zuiderzee at a much later date. At the places where I observed 

 the floating eggs of the anchovy the areometer indicated a sali- 

 nity of more thau l^jo salt (areometer 1.009 at 15° C. and at an- 

 other place 1.008 at 17° C). 



Occasion ally I was present when rich catches of anchovies 

 with the aid of the »wonderkuil" were made; at first , though 

 they were all »fuH" fishes (i. e. repleuished with spawn or roe), 

 most of them were not quite ripe ; but towards the middle and end 

 of June male as well as female fishes became quite ripe ; later 

 on a few spent fishes were observed between the fuU ones. On 

 July 19 I investigated one hundred anchovies caught with so- 

 called standing nets — a kind of drift- nets attached to the bot- 

 tom by means of anchors — to make out, if possible, whether the 

 fishing of anchovies at such an advanced date was injurious or 

 not. I found that most of these fishes were spent. Among the 

 males tbere were still a few the soft roe of which contained ripe 

 spermatozoa; the females nearly all showed totally or almost to- 

 tally empty ovaries: in that year (1888) the spawning period of 

 the anchovy in the Zuiderzee can be said to have lasted from 

 the beginning or the first week of June until the middle of July. 



The youDg anchovies stay in the Zuiderzee till in the autumn 

 of the year of their birth. During my investigations in the 

 Zuiderzee I did not often observe young anchovies. An»anchovy- 

 larva" of about 15 m.m. length was taken near the entrance- 

 buoy of the Zwolsche Diep ; this happened on July 6. The water 

 at that place was very nearly fresh, and as only a single spe- 

 cimen was taken there, I think it is possible that it was one which 

 got astray. I figured the little fish, which from its characteristic 

 shape cannot easily be misunderstood, in fig. 6 of PI. V. On Oc- 

 tober 11 1888, off VoUendam , a young anchovy of 80 m.m. 

 length was found in the contents of a »kuilnet". 



1888 was not a very favorable year for the anchovy-fishing 

 in the Zuiderzee; in all only 15.000 »ankers", barrels, containing 

 about 3500 fishes each, were caught. In that year not very many 

 fishes can have spawned in the Zuiderzee; nor was this the case 



