of the Fishery Board for Scotland. 59 
and eleven and a half inches. In the course of the investigations the 
number of cod and codlings recorded was 9631, grouped as follows :— 
1 1 N 7 
CODLING. CODLING, Con. 
u. I. From about 27 
inches upwards, 
and from about 
four years old 
From about 84 or 9} From about 115 
inches to 114 inches] inches to about 27 
and under two inches, and from 
years old. under two to about upwards, 
four years old. 
1,416 5,722 2,493 
bona! °/9 59-4 ht 7,259 
The first series of small codlings thus represents only a difference of 
about three inches from the smallest to the largest, and a correspond- 
ingly small range of age; the large codling represent a difference of 
about fifteen and a half inches, and the group of cod a range of usually 
about twelve or thirteen inches, but it may be much more. 
Although very young cod, younger than those included in the Table, 
are not quite absent from the bottom on the offshore deep-water grounds, 
the use of the small-meshed net showed that they were rare, compared 
with the grounds in moderate depths. But, as Hjort’s investigations 
have shown, they may exist in fair numbers in the upper layers of water, 
descending to the bottom as they increase in size. Compared with 
many other fishes, the cod at all stages of its life appears normally to be 
a widely-dispersed fish. I have been struck with this in examining the 
hauls on the trawlers, a few, and only a few, cod or codlings being 
generally taken in each drag. During the greater part of the year they 
are dispersed and scattered, searching for food, collecting into shoals as 
the spawning season approaches, and congregating in pursnit of the 
herrings when that fish forms into shoals at certain times of the year. 
The low proportion of cod and large codling in September, as indicated 
in the Table above, may have been due to the latter reason, and the 
high averages in the early part of the year on the inshore grounds 
largely to the former. The occurrence, however, of a shoal of herrings 
or sprats on the coast, as in the Moray Firth in December and Aberdeen 
Bay in October, attracts great numbers of cod of all sizes. Some of the 
quite small codlings were found to be gorged with sprats and young 
herrings, and they were also living largely on the young whitings. 
SaitHE on Coat-risH (Gadus virens). 
Comparatively few of this predaceous fish were obtained during the 
investigations, and they were nearly all large and marketable, the 
younger forms being known to frequent the inshore grounds. The 
total number obtained was 266, of whick all but ten were large enough 
to be marketable. Ten were got in the large series of hauls in Aberdeen 
Bay, mostly in summer ; sixty-five in the Moray Firth, especially in 
January, February, and March; while on the deep-water grounds they 
were much more numerous, 185 being precured there in comparatively 
many fewer hauls. They were most numerous in the hauls made in 
May, off the Aberdeenshire coast, in from sixty-four to seventy-one 
fathoms, the average per haul there being 16:2, and per hour’s fishing 
