THE COD FISHERIES NEAR THE LOFFODEN ISLANDS. GOT 



regarded, exactly like the specimen I had examined ; but there were 

 some where the differences noticed by me were by no means so dis- 

 tinctly marked, and with many fish neither I nor the fishermen could 

 tell to which class they belonged. Every imaginable shade of differ- 

 ence between the two was found, and not one of the distinguishing 

 marks mentioned by the fishermen seemed sufficient to draw a sharp 

 dividing line in all cases. I therefore arrived at the conclusion that the 

 ''coming-in" fish and the codfish proper were really one and the same 

 fish, and that the peculiarities occasionally found in some of the former 

 were owing to purely accidental circumstances, e. g., food and location; 

 in other words, I felt convinced that the young of the "coming-in" fish 

 may become codfish proper and vice versa. 



During these fisheries I also occasionally had an opportunity to make 

 some other observations, which all went to corroborate some points in 

 the spawning process of the codfish mentioned in my first report. I had 

 thus several times an opportunity of convincing myself that the male 

 fish, contrary to the general rule, while spawning are nearer the bottom 

 than the female fish. Those boats which employed dragnets almost ex- 

 clusively caught male fish, while those using floating-nets caught female 

 fish. 



That the male fish must be nearer the bottom I would have declared 

 as a necessity, even before I had found it corroborated by tangible 

 proofs, from the nature of the matured eggs : for these are always found 

 in such a position that the side containing the micropyle turns down- 

 ward. Even when (as frequently happens in experiments made with 

 artificial hatching) some eggs are squeezed out of a codfish which have 

 not yet been fully matured, and are still covered with the thin skin con- 

 taining the blood-vessels, they will nevertheless turn the side with the 

 micropyle downward. It will therefore be easily understood that during 

 the natural si)awning process the male fish must be lower than the 

 female, so the milt which is rapidly rising towards the surface may hit 

 the only place in the egg where impregnation can take place. The build 

 of the eggs, on the other hand, necessitates their floating near the sur- 

 face. The many experiments with fish-eggs which I had made during 

 former seasons, and likewise this winter, had proved this peculiar i)he- 

 nomenon beyond a doubt. If, therefore, any one in making such exper- 

 iments, should find that the eggs placed in some vessel do not float toward 

 the surface, this is either a sign that the water does not contain suffi- 

 cient salt, or that the eggs are not mature, or that they have begun to 

 decompose. Wherever this is the case, they can never be hatched. * 



I must yet mention another point, which I consider of great interest, 

 and which I found corroborated by my investigations. For several sea- 

 sons I had observed, toward the end of my stay in Skraaven, that the 

 water in the sounds formerly so clear and transparent had become thick 



* I have mentioned this because I have been told that experiments with the artiii- 

 cial hatching of codfish eggs, made in Christiania this spring, had proved my statement 

 that codfish eggs were always developed while floating near the surface to be incorrect. 



