As no records are available for this season for other yeiirs, no direct 

 comparison by season can be made. However, because the mortality rates based 

 on 1949 and 1950 data for July and August appear considerably higher than rates 

 based on commercial landings (Schuck and Taylor, in press) and show a decrease 

 in mortality with increasing age while the commercial data show an increase with 

 increasing age, it is of interest to estimate mortalities on the basis of the spring 

 of 1950 and summer of 1949 data. If fishing intensity were constant, numerical 

 mortality based on this 9 -month period should be considerably lower because of the 

 shorter time lapse between successive samplings of the populations and should serve 

 as a check on reliability. Only subareas H, J, M, and N could be used for the com- 

 parison of mortalities. The catch per tow for these subareas for 1949 and 1950 

 (summer), and 1^50 (spring), and the calculated mortalities are given in table 4. 



Table 4. -- Comparison of -mortalities based on catch per tow data 

 for summer of 1949 and 1950, and spring of 1950 in 

 subareas H, J, M. and N 



13 



