6 DEPARTMENT OF TBE NAVAL SERVICE 



6 GEORGE V, A. 1916 



schooners operating from the cold storage establishment at Haysport on the Skeena 

 river. I reached Haysport by way of Prince Rupert on May 16, and was met by Mr. 

 Harry Sheere, the manager. The schooner Roosevelt had just come in with a catch 

 of about 40,000 pounds of halibut, which were being landed and rapidly decapitated 

 before being weighed. After some delay, due to slight engine trouble, the ship weighed 

 anchor on May 19 at 11.30 a.m., and by sunset at 8.50 p.m. on the same day had 

 gained the middle of Dixon's entrance. Next morning we made the Parry passage 

 between Graham island and North island, and set a course to the &SW. of Frederick 

 island, where we sounded in 33 fathoms on a gravelly bottom, and made the first set. 

 The schooner carried four dories, each dory putting out several skates of gear. A 

 skate consists of seven lines joined together, each line carrying thirty hooks. The . 

 catch comprised, besides halibut, red cod (Sehastodes ruberrimus) , ling cod or blue 

 cod (Ophiodon elongatus), and the North Pacific chimseroid or ratfish {Hydrolagus 

 colliei). 



Red cod and ling cod have nothing to do with true codfish, but they are valuable 

 food-fishes. Nevertheless, in consequence of market exigencies, they have to be 

 rejected by the halibut vessels, and a trial of bright red fish floating dead behind a 

 dory, each with an attendant gull, is a common spectacle. They (i.e., the red cod) 

 have the peculiar property common to other deep-sea fish, though not possessed by 

 the ling cod, halibut, nor true gray cod, of becoming blown out when brought to the 

 surface; the eyes start from their sockets and the stomach is often pushed inside out 

 into the throat. The large bladder-like ovaries of the first red cod which I examined 

 were full of loose eggs in a viscous fluid, like sago. These eggs were transparent, with 

 translucent yolk and a single bright yellow oil drop; they had the usual dimensions 

 of pelagic eggs, not exceeding one mm. in diameter, and I was astonished to observe 

 that each egg contained an embryo coiled round the yolk, with black pigment in its 

 eyes. On stirring up a quantity of the fresh eggs some of the embryos were freed from 

 the membranes, but I saw no twitching of tails. On placing a small cohering mass 

 of them in sea-water, they readily shook apart and sank slowly in the still water, 

 with the oil drops up. I made a rough estimate that each ovary contained 225,000 y 

 eggs. 



It was known that the Scorpsenidse or rock fishes, to which family Sehastodes 

 belongs, are viviparous, but my first acquaintance with the phenomenon surprised me 

 greatly, because in other cases of fishes which incubate their eggs within the body of 

 one of the parents, whether it is in a brood-pouch of the body of either parent, or in 

 the mouth of the male, or in the ovaries of the female, the eggs are relatively few in 

 number, sometimes large in size, and do not exhibit the characteristics of pelagic 

 eggs. Carl H. Eigenmann (" On the viviparous Fishes of the Pacific Coast of North 

 America," Bull. U. S. Fish Commission for 1892, Washington, 1894, pp. 381-478, pis. 

 92-118) states that in the largest of the Scorpscnidae, Sehastodes levis, attaining tho 

 length of 2 to 3 feet and weight of 29 pounds, found in deep waters along the coast 

 of California from San Diego to Monterey, and occasionally seen in the markets of 

 Los Angeles, the ripe eggs, about 1 mm. in diameter, would fill about two quarts, each 

 egg developing into a larva before its discharge from the ovary. He adds that there 

 is no month in the year during which the developing eggs of viviparous fishes cannot 

 be procured at San Diego. Over 30 per cent of the bony fishes found at San Diego 

 are viviparous, and all of them belong to one of two families, Embiotocidae and Scor- 

 paenidfe. Eigenmann further distinguishes two types of viviparity in fishes: (1) 

 Those in which the yolk furnishes all the intraovarian food, e.g., Poecilia, Gamhusia, 

 Scorpsenidse ; in these the number of young is not reduced; (2) Those in which the 

 greater part of the food is furnished by the ovary, e.g., Blennius, Zoarces, Anahleps, 

 and Embiotocidae; in these the number of young is reduced and bears a relation to 

 the size and age of the parent. 



