EGG AND LARVAL STAGES OF HALIBUT 23 



SESSIONAL PAPER No. 38a 



(about 5 inches) has been attained, the features of the full-grown halibut seem to be 

 assumed, and the subsequent changes are those pertaining to size and sexual develop- 

 ment. Professor Verrill got a small halibut of this size in a dredge when investigat- 

 ing the Strait of Canso waters many years ago, and this is th^ sm Test s;^ecimen 

 obtained on North American shores. 



OLDER EXAMPLES OF SMALL HALIBUT. 



Halibut about 10 inches long (20 cm.) are common in shallow waters arouiid 

 Iceland, and Professor Mcintosh has recorded Scottish specimens 12 inches lougi'in 

 shallow areas such as St. Andrews bay. 



It is apparent from the little evidence available that halibut, after passing 

 through their larval and post-larval metamorphoses in deep water, frequent inshore 

 shallows during part of their adolescence, when the dull olive colour of the dark right 

 side of the fish is marbled Avith the meandering dark bands which characterize it at 

 so early a period as the IJ-inch stage. Comparing the common species with H. hippo- 

 glossm'des specialists have found that in the two youngest known stages no pigment 

 whatever appears, and in the larger stages (51 mm.) the colour spots on the 

 body are sparse as contrasted with the other species at the same size. No doubt much 

 pigment may have been lost, and in the youngest specimens removed completely 

 through the action of the preservative fluid in which such specimens are placed for 

 purposes of scientific study. 



Immature halibut do not appear to frequent any special depths, and Dr. Gilpin 

 long ago pointed out that specimens the size of the oiatspread hand are got in Nova 

 Scotia weirs and traps, close inshore, and occur also in plenty on the " banks " in the 

 open sea. 



Dr. Wemyss Fulton obtained a halibut Y| inches long in Aberdeen bay on Novem- 

 ber 1 some years ago, the depth being 8 to IS fathoms, and one off Dunbeath (Caith- 

 ness) 111 inches, while a specimen 14 inches long (weight, 15i ounces) was secured 

 in Dornoch Pirth in December.^ His opinion is that in July, August, and September 

 these small halibut move off into deep water, and in October he records specimens 

 from 17i to 30 inches long in 65 fathoms depth, though Captain Collins, the well- 

 known United States authority, records halibut of three pounds weight in October, 

 1886, on Jeffrey's ledge, off the New England coast. The migrations of these imma- 

 ture and of the large mature fish afford a complex and interesting problem for future 

 investigation. 



1 21st Ann. Rep., Scott. Fish Bd., 1902, p. 53. 



