upper Adriatic and among the islands about the end of winter, moving in 

 definite directions; there follows in June and July a pause in the 

 fishing, which corresponds to the removal of the tuna for reproduction} 

 then they reappear in August and remain until October or Novembero The 

 tuna which arrive in the summer remain there, in all probability through 

 the whole season, euid one may speak of seasonal permanence. But how 

 many of these same tuna will be represented in the suceeding year? 

 Certainly not all, for a part take other directionSc. The periods in 

 which this dispersal of the tuna is essentially determined are probably 

 linked with the two phenomena which tend to restrict the habitat of 

 the tuna to definite and very limited zoneso The first is related to 

 reproduction, the second to winteringo Following these the tuna again 

 takes up its, let: us say, centrifugal movement in search of food. 



Without doubt then (analogously with what has been demonstrated for 

 other fishes) a greater sedentariness is manifested in small tuna, not 

 yet sexually maturo> either because they are not yet subject to reproduc- 

 tive migratory drives, or because they are more resistant to low 

 temperatures. And indeed the tuna which are captured in the winter on 

 all coasts (and even in the Adriatic) are small or medium-sisedo 



One notes the interesting fact that t he pattern described above 

 for the fishery of the Adriatic is repeated , with few modifications , in 

 all localities of the Mediterranean where tuna are fished except in the 

 zones of the great tuna traps. Thus in the Gulf of Lyons (see statistics of 

 Gourret, Ann. Mus, ffl.st. Hat,, Marseillesi RDu}.e), at Constantinople 

 (see statistics of the fish market in Cevedjian, Ptche et P^heries en 

 Turquie, Constantinople 1926), on the Mediterranean coast of Spain, etc. — 

 everywhere there occur two pauses in the fishing, that is to say in the 

 preaenoe of tuna t one in the winter and the other in the reproductive 

 period. 



The tuna, according to my observations, begins to reproduce in 

 the third year of age , when it has attained a weight of about 15 kg, 



With regard to the reproduction of small tuna (15-30-50 kg) I will 

 repeat an observation which I have already made elsewhere, which is that 

 we are still ignorant in large part as to where are to be found the areas 

 of reproduction of the tuna of these sizes, because all of the large 

 tuna traps take almost exclusively large fish. Do the small tuna of the 

 Adriatic go down to spawn in the seas of Sicily? And where do the small 

 tuna of the Gulf of Lyons go to spawn? In Sardinian or Tunisian waters, 

 as Roule supposes? In reality we do not knows it may even happen that 

 they do not go so far, or that they reproduce in the open sea, 



2) An interesting datum on the direction followed by the returning 

 tuna on the east coast of Sicily is furnished by the hooks from Messina. 



In an investigation which I made in 1928 in these tuna fisheries 

 (S. Fanagia, Marzamemi, C. Passero, etco), I was able to ascertain that 

 numerous hooks from Messina (hooks which are unmistakable because of their 



