New Jersey in rradsumraer. It is far more likely that the August increase in 

 numbers of I-group fish in Virginia is due to migration from the group 

 which strikes in on the North Carolina coast in spring than that they rep- 

 resent a belated wave of migrants direct from the winter grounds, for by 

 early August, vernal warming in both Virginia and southern New Jersey has 

 long since been completed, and weakfish of older age groups are well 

 represented there. 



h) Two-year-old (age-group II) weakfish are well represented in the 

 samples from southern New Jersey and from Montauk, N. Y. In only one year 

 of the period studied (1929) were they abundant at Fire Island; and they 

 were present in northern New Jersey only in minor quantities and only in the 

 sprin.^. The numerous two year old fish at Montauk and Fire Island in 1929 

 was not preceded by an abundance of yearlings in these localities in 1928. 

 Furthermore not enough yearlings were observed in southern New Jersey to 

 account for all of the two year old fish seen there the next year. These 

 observations suggest that most of the two year old fish north of Delaware 

 Bay are immigrants, presumably recruited from the stocks of yearlings in 

 localities south of Delaware Bay where such weakfish are regularly present. 



5) The fish of three years and more constitute the bulk of the catch 

 only in northern New Jersey and (in some years) at Fire Island. This sug- 

 gests that just as the two year old fish in southern New Jersey are immi- 

 grants from the numerous yearling stocks in the South, the older fish in 

 northern New Jersey and at Fire Island are derived from the southem New 

 Jersey two year old stocks. 



6) The rate of growth of weakfish is greater in northern localities 

 than in southern ones. For example, in the autumn, three year old fish have 

 modal lengths of only about 29 centimeters in Virginia, 32 centimeters in 

 southern New Jersey, 35 centimeters in northern New Jersey and UO centi- 

 meters at Montauk (fig. 7). 



7) In all localities where samples are available for comparing the 

 sizes of spring-caught and fall-caught weakfish, the fall one and two-year 

 old fish are, as might be expected from growth, larger than spring fish of 

 these age groups (fig. 6). This is also true of age-groups III, IV, and V 

 in New York and northern New Jersey (fig. 7 and 8). But in Virginia and in 

 southern New Jersey the reverse is true. The fall-caught fish cf these age- 

 groups are smaller than the spring fish. This is just ^ what would be expected 

 if some of the spring fish in these localities had spent one or more of 

 their previous summers in northern New Jersey or New York where the growth 



is faster, and were enroute thither when taken. That this phenomenon is 

 limited to the Ill-group and older fish is explained by the lack of I-group 

 fish in the localities where growth is rapid. Limitation of the phenomenon 

 to Virginia and southern New Jersey localities is explained by the fact 

 that there are no localities where growth is faster than in northern New 

 Jersey and New York, hence no localities whence larger fish might some in 

 spring. 



ho 



