BIHANG TILL K. SV. VET.-AKAD. HANDL. BAND 24. AFD. IV. N:0 9. ål 
fishes with demersal eggs of that size, 1,3—1,5 mm., and that 
shape, which spawn that time of the year. The Cottoids 
usually spawn in autumn or winter and most of them have 
larger eggs, as it seems. The number of the eggs is too large 
to have belonged to a Cyclogaster. 
If my supposition proves to be right it may be of great 
commercial value for the future to carry on herring-fisheries 
in the neighbourhood of Beeren Eiland. 
There has not been carried on any regular fishing at 
Spitzbergen, and to do that would probably be connected 
with several difficulties, among which the strong currents 
play an important part, but if it was done I suppose the 
list of fishes from Spitzbergen would be enriched with several 
species. It is evident that so must be the case, for even the 
more active or large bottom fishes cannot at all, or seldom 
be caught with the dredging apparatus and those swimming 
higher up in the water never, or only by accident.! 
MALMGREN (1. c.) and LÖTKEN (1. ec.) have given tabular 
reviews of the arctic fishes, and with the additions made in 
this paper those tables can still be regarded as expressions 
for the present knowledge of the distribution of the fishes in 
the Arctic Sea. In the »Biologisches Centralblatt> Bd. XVIII 
Nos. 9 and 10 H. TrautzscH has published a paper, »Die geo- 
graphische Verbreitung der Wirbelthiere in der Grönland- 
und Spitzbergensee», which shows a very great abundance of 
misprints and mistakes. He divides the fishes in three classes: 
1) fishes distributed over the whole region, 2) fishes which 
prefer the arctic region and seldom or never leave the same, 
1 At last some words may be said about a fish which by the Nor- 
wegian sealhunters, who every year visit Spitzbergen, is called »ismört»> or 
>ismurt»>. »Mört> or »murt> is the collective name at the Norwegian coast 
for many different kinds of fry or small fish, as young cod, green cod, her- 
ring etc. The meaning of »ismurt» can thus be translated: »small fish of 
the ice>. The »ismurt»> is said to live just outside the glaciers, and the hun- 
ters say that the Delphinapterus leucas uses to come there to prey on the 
>sismurt>. According to the same authority the shape of this unknown fish 
is something similar to that of a herring. The Swedish Expedition of this 
summer did not obtain any specimen of the »ismurt». Mr. KOLTHOFF how- 
ever has told me that he once found in the cesophagus of a bird, he had shot, 
a piece of a half digested fish which could not be determined, but which had 
a long dorsal fin. so that the fragment could not have belonged to a Mallo- 
tus or a Clupea and it was too broad to be of a Lumpenus or an Ammo- 
dytes. This piece was, however, unfortunately lost, so the question remains 
open yet. In Van Mijens Bay KoLTHOoFF saw Urie fishing for that »>ismurt>, 
but the birds which were shot dropped their prey which sunk before it could 
be taken up. 
