Age categories, A to D, into which sardine 

 eggs are classified, are as follows: 



A- 1 dayold. Eggs spawned within 24 liours of collec- 

 tion. 



B- 2 days old. Eggs spawned between 24.1 to 48 hours 

 of collection. 



C- 3 daysold, Ei;gs spawned between 48.1 to 72 hours 

 of collection. 



D- 4 days old. Eggs spawned between 72.1 to 9b hours 

 of ci^Uection. 



Unclassified (unci.). Deteriorated eggs. 



A dash (-) in table indicates an age category which 

 could not be present because temperatures were high 

 enough to have hatched the eggs before they reached that 

 age. 



A zero (0) value indicates tliat although no eggs were 

 taken they could havebeenpresent according to tempera- 

 ture and time of collection. 



Sardine eggs were collected at every drogue 

 station with the greatest numbers per haul 

 occurring in the grid area (table 2a). New 

 spawning occurred throughout the range of 

 the drogue trajectory. Ten-meter tempera- 

 tures ranged from 15.71°to 16.26° C. which 

 allowed for a maximum embryonic period of 

 only 3 days, except at station D-28 where 

 a few 4-day-old eggs were collected and at 

 station D-29, where, although no eggs were 

 collected, 4-day-olds could have been present, 

 although temperatures at these stations were 

 16.23° C. and 16.19° C. respectively. Four- 

 day-olds at station D-28 were present either 

 because the eldest category was just over 3 

 days from spawning (in fact only one-quarter 

 of an hour over) or they might have been taken 

 from colder regions below the 10-meter level 

 and had a longer period of development. The 

 possibility of 4-day-old eggs at station D-29 

 can be reasoned only on the basis of time of 

 collection. Samples at the anchor station 

 were collected from water that had been 

 transported southward to that area. Egg col- 

 lections during the first 3 days showed that 

 very little new spawning was occurring. On 

 the fourth and fifth days of collection, how- 

 ever, new spawning became heavy (table 2a, 

 stations A-19 and A-29). Temperatures ranged 

 from 15.67° to 16.23° C., allowing for only 

 3 days from spawning to hatching. 



Sardine eggs, 1 to 3 days old, were collected 

 every day on the grid pattern. The greatest 



concentrations were usually in the eastern 

 (inshore) half of the grid (fig. 2). On the first 

 3 days of coverage there were no eggs at 

 some of the stations. On the fourth and fifth 

 days, eggs were found at all stations. These 

 were primarily 1 -day-old eggs on Grid IV 

 and 1- and 2-day-old eggs onGridV (table 2b). 



The current through the grid, as demon- 

 strated by the drogue trajectory, probably 

 changed the egg and larval population once 

 each day. Thus, each day's older eggs were 

 those spawned in areas north of the grid. 

 When collections were begun at 0800 hours on 

 each day, both 1 -day-old eggs and previously 

 spawned eggs were present in the grid and 

 north, of it. By the time the ship reached the 

 western section of the grid at 2000 hours, new 

 spawning had begun. The eggs, which had been 

 to the north at the beginning of the day's 

 sampling run had moved into the grid, were 

 12+ hours older and had entered their next 

 age category. Because sampling the grid was 

 an attempt to obtain each day's eggs as a 

 single unit, these advanced eggs were listed 

 by their spawning day and consequently in the 

 same age category as those collected earlier, 

 as though they had been collected simultane- 

 ously over the entire grid. Eggs spawned after 

 2000 hours in each day's grid collections are 

 listed only under a date of spawning in the 

 age category columns (table 2b). When col- 

 lections began again on each following day, 

 those eggs were out of the grid, but the 1 -day- 

 old group from north of the grid was being 

 sampled in that day's collections and were 

 thus listed as 1-day eggs. 



FISH LARVAE 



The differences in numbers of the different 

 species of larvae in this survey reflect both 

 differences in the relative numbers of adults 

 in the area and the relation of the time of the 

 survey to the time of peak spawning for each 

 species. Of the larvae, sardines were the 

 most abundant, for they represented about 71 

 percent of all larvae taken by all ships during 

 the 5-day survey, 67 percent of all larvae 

 taken in the five grids, 79 percent of all larvae 

 taken on the anchor stations, and 81 percent 

 of all larvae taken at the drogue stations 

 (table 3; fig. 3). The larvae of other commercial 



11 



