Fishes of the Western North Atlantic 583 



early May through June in northern Norwegian waters {14: 152); but on the Murman 

 coast the fish are inshore from March to July; and Rachmanowa's observations (1928) 

 suggest that there may be two reproduction peaks, an early one in March and April 

 and a late one in June and July. 



Spawning Grounds. Capelin spawn on the bottom close inshore and on the off- 

 shore banks as well (see below). It has been a matter of common knowledge for genera- 

 tions that most of the hordes of Capelin of Newfoundland (including Labrador) spawn 

 right up on the beaches, even in the wash of the waves ;'^ and multitudes spawn simi- 

 larly along the intertidal zone in Greenland waters. But considerable spawning also takes 

 place near shore, from 2 or 3 fms. down to 20 fms. or so; occasionally even at 40-50 

 fms. ;^* and at 25—35 fms. on the Grand Bank, where Pitt has recently reported the 

 widespread presence of spawning populations {j()'. 279—281). In Icelandic waters 

 they "most frequently breed in rather deep water. "3* Around northern Norway also, 

 they have been reported as spawning mostly at depths of 4—20 fms. (9^: 172); if 

 beach spawning takes place at all there, this is not in an amount sufficient to have 

 attracted the attention of either local fishermen or scientists. In the Barents Sea "eggs 

 are most often caught . . . above depths from 50—100 meters" (Rass, 81: 31). 



Type of Bottom for Spawning. When Capelin spawn on the beach, they usually 

 select stretches of gravel for the purpose rather than sandy stretches where the eggs 

 are more apt to be buried by the action of the waves. The chief production of eggs on 

 the Newfoundland beaches occurs where the grains of gravel run about 5—15 mm in 

 diameter (jjo: 41), and on the Grand Bank where the sand grains are almost 0.5— 

 2.2 mm {jg: 280). Pacific Capelin, which are supposed to average smaller than those 

 of the Atlantic, are reported as spawning chiefly where the gravel size is 1—5 mm 

 (^o: 24). But the fish do sometimes deposit their eggs on rocks, on sand, and even 

 on algae, more commonly so, it seems, on the western Greenland coast than on the 

 Newfoundland coast (.^5: 82). And when they spawn regularly below the intertidal 

 zone, as seems the general rule in Norwegian waters, they may do so on sand, or without 

 regard for the nature of the bottom. 



Spawning Activities. The schools that come in on the beach consist solely of mature 

 males and mature or maturing females; the juvenile fish remain somewhat farther out, 

 where quantities of them are often seen, most of them deeper down. On the whole the 

 larger fish spawn earlier than the smaller ones. 



"The spawning act," writes Templeman, "has been observed by a few scientists, 

 and by tens of thousands of Newfoundlanders," for Capelin spawning on the beach 

 are in such dense schools that they are in plain view from the strand {iio: 1"^. 

 So spectacular are their spawning activities that these have been described in vivid 

 terms,^ the earliest, it seems, for the Pacific subspecies catervarius Pennant, in 1784 

 (j^: cxxvii; 73: 389), and time and again for the Atlantic villosus. 



32. Anspach, for example, wrote in 1819 {2: 401) of Capelin depositing their eggs "on the sand" in Conception Bay. 



33. For details, see especially Templeman (jjo: 59-61). 



34. Information contributed by A.Vedel Taning, from observations by H. Einarsson. 



3;. The accounts by Perley (76: 135) and Lanman {60: 225), often quoted, evidently were taken (partly verbatim) 



