When studying the life cycle of Murman herring, Prof. Rass (21) concluded that all its fry 

 pass through, near the shores of Murman, the so-called littoral stage which occurs, in his opinion, 

 in Motovka and Kola Gulfs, and in bays near the rivers Teriberka, Voronya, lokanya; it is while in 

 this stage that fry actively migrate from these areas and settle down in the Barents Sea . 



We refuted the aforementioned findings in the work of 1941. Data collected during recent 

 years show that the littoral phase is not characteristic of all the Murman herring fry, but of a very 

 small portion of these fish, drifting in the proximity of the shore. This probably is the main differ- 

 ence between the migration of herring fry from the South- Norwegian and Lofoten spawning grounds. 



The Polar Institute's annual observations on the distribution of herring fry and study of the 

 content of the stomachs of trawl-caught cod enable us to assume that the importance of different 

 migration paths of the fry varies from one year to another. During certain years, a great number 

 of young herring are carried along the main branch of the North Cape current to settle down on the 

 ocean floor, at a certain distance from the shores, in the region of Murman shelf and Goose Bank; 

 during other years, however, the drift along the Murman shores is more intensive, and, as a re- 

 sult, a great number of fry settle down near the shores and enter the White Sea. Only a relatively 

 small number of fry are carried into the northern zones of the sea. The drift of herring fry, hatch- 

 ed in the course of a year, to the western shores of Spitsbergen, was studied in both 1939 and 1950. 



Herring fry may penetrate the Barents Sea from the spawning grounds located along the 

 south-western shore of Norway only at the age of 1-2 years and it seems rather improbable that 

 they could reach the eastern zones of the Barents Sea . 



The highest catches of small herring are obtained in the north-western sections of the 

 Norwegian coast, in the provinces of Nordland and Troms; a relatively limited fishing for small 

 herring is conducted west of North Cape; easterly from Kola Meridian small herring are found en 

 masse. All this rather clearly outlines the limits of the herring fry dissemination from the south- 

 ern and northern spawning grounds . The main bulk of fry from the southern spawning grounds 

 settles down south of Lofoten Islands: the fry of Lofoten origin are carried away into the eastern 

 half of the Barents Sea. The intermixing of fry from the southe 'n and northern spawning grounds 

 probably occurs in the region of eastern Finnmark, where we niay find the rapidly drifting fry from 

 the southern spawning grounds and the delayed young herring of Lofoten origin. 



Thus far the drift of herring larvae from Viking Bank and Faeroes has not been studied at 

 all. 



The drift of fry undoubtedly takes place in the region of Iceland, where the spawning grounds 

 are located along the southern part of the south-western coast of the island, in the zone of the 

 Irminger current . This important phase in the life cycle of Iceland herring remains obscure as 

 yet. Thus far there is hardly any small herring industry in the Icelandic region. 



In 1936, Fridriksson (42) carried out explorations for spawning herring and discovered near 

 the south-western shores of Iceland a great number of one-year-old herring, 8-10 cm. in length. 

 Moreover, in the aforenamed work Fridriksson mentioned large concentrations of small herring 

 found in 1907 along Iceland's western coast. 



Investigations conducted by Taning in 1939 and 1946 (80, 81) showed that herring larvae found 

 along the western coast are larger than those from the southern coast. This confirms the theory 

 that herring fry drift along the shores of Iceland, from the south towards north-west. There are 

 two rather large shallow bays on the western shore of Iceland - i.e. Faxa Bay and Breidafjord, with 



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