REPORTS OF COMMITTEES. 291 



Observations were made on the contents of the stomachs of nearly 

 a score of different species of iish^ — some of them not food fishes, how- 

 ever — from November, 1904, to May, 1905, and from February to 

 November of the present year (1906). The reason of the interrupted 

 observations is that the Avork of collecting ova, rearing the fry, and 

 attending to the stock of fish in the ponds, frequentlv interfered with 

 the trips on the trawlers or with records of the stomach contents of the 

 fishes taken on these occasions. Somo fishes also — such as the moki 

 {Latris ciliaris) — are never opened by the fishermen on board the 

 trawlers, so that it was difficult to obtain any record of them. 



The commonest food material in the New Zealand seas in the 

 neighborhood of the south-west coast is the pelagic crustacean, known 

 as " whale feed," which is almost certainly a free swimming stage of 

 Munida sub-rugosa. Attempts have been made in the hatchery 

 aquarium to rear this crustacean from the egg, but without success 

 hitherto ; so that while there seems little doubt of the accuracy of the 

 identification, actual proof is still wanting, and the species is usually 

 registered as Grimothea gregaria. This crustacean is taken through a 

 great part of the year, but is particularly abundant in the summer 

 months, when it is met with in shoals numbering often many hundreds 

 of thousands of individuals. The bright red color of the animal, which 

 is about an inch or more in length, makes it extremely conspicuous, and 

 it appears to furnish food for most kinds of fishes which swim near the 

 surface, as well as for some shallow-water ground feeders. 



Next to this free swimming form, many species of Crustacea which 

 live on or near the bottom of the sea are more frequently recorded as 

 furnishing food for fishes than perhaps any other group of organisms. 

 But one reason for this certainly is that their exo-skeleton is not so 

 readily digested as the bodies of other animals, fishes, worms, &c., and 

 consequently they are more readily identified. The migrations of these 

 Crustacea are not at all known or studied yet, but there seems little 

 doubt that the migrations of the fish themselves is probably more often 

 due to their following their food than to any other cause. 



An interesting example of this was noted by Mr. Anderton in the 

 end of May and beginning of June of this present year. For over a 

 fortnight the trawlers worked over a small area abouffour miles square 

 in Blueskin Bay, to the north of Otago Harbor, fishing in from four to 

 seven fathoms of water. They were getting great numbers of large 

 soles {Peltorhani'phus novm-zealandice), flounders {Bhomhosolea ■jdeheia), 

 and red cod {Physiculus hacclius). The fishermen attributed the abun- 

 dance of the fish to their coming in to spav/n, and the remark is charac- 

 teristic of the utter ignorance prevailing among fishermen as to the 

 habits of the fish which they are continually catching, for the fish were 

 not within two months of their spawning time, and, further, they do 

 not come inshore to deposit their ova, but appear rather to keep away 

 from shallow water. Mr. Anderton found the explanation to be due 

 to their following their food. The sea-bottom was covered with a vast 

 number of cumaceans {Biadylis novCB-zealandi(v), a species hitherto 

 only known from two or three small specimens taken in a dredge in 



