[3] THE FINMARK CAPELAN-FISHERIES. 169 
bers for the purpose of spawning. At this season the capelan consti- 
tutes the food of the cod, and is therefore almost exclusively employed 
as bait. The cod-fisheries therefore essentially depend on a regular 
and numerous approach of the capelan to the different fishing-stations. 
I have already had occasion to make a brief statement regarding the 
capelan, and the so-called capelan-cod, in my report on the practical and 
~ gcientific investigations made during the last polar expedition ; and the 
investigations of the capelan-fisheries made by me during the present 
year have not caused me to change any of the opinions expressed in said 
report. 
As [have said in that report, I have reason to suppose—and I base 
this supposition on the extensive physical and biological investigations 
made in the Polar Sea—that the proper home of the capelan is the sea 
between Spitzbergen, Greenland, Iceland, and Jan Mayens, especially 
that portion of it, which forms the immediate boundary of the polar cur- 
rent. This, however, does not imply that the capelan is not likewise 
found in other parts of the Polar Sea. Here it seems, for the greater 
part of the year, to lead a roving (pelagian) life, like the herring, which 
it resembles closely, not only as to its form, but also in its propagation 
and mode of life, aithough it belongs to an entirely different family. 
Towards spring the mature individuals gather in large schools and go 
south towards the northern coasts of Europe and America, in order to 
spawn. During this time it is pursued by whales wnd different fish of 
prey, the principal one of which is the cod. It is so well known that 
the capelan is found near Greenland and Iceland, that I did not deem 
it necessary to mention this fact in my report. On the other hand I 
thought that it was not generally known that large schools of capelan 
visit the coast of Labrador and the northern and eastern coasts of 
Newfoundland, where they cause codfisheries of exactly the same char- 
acter as those of Finmark to spring into existence. I have therefore 
deemed it proper to direct attention to this interesting fact in my report 
above referred to, after having obtained not only satisfactory informa- 
tion regarding these fisheries, but also specimens of capelan from New- 
foundland. 
The only place on our coast where the capelan come in large num- 
bers is the coast of Finmark. Farther south only small and scattered 
schools or stragglers, which seem to have lost their way, have been ob- 
served; even as far south, however, as the Christiania fiord. As the 
capelan-district proper we must designate the portion of the sea ex- 
tending from the Lapland Sea in the west to the Varanger-fiord and 
Vardoe in the east, more particularly the northern coast of Russia from 
the Varanger-fiord to the fishing-stations near the mouth of the White 
Sea (the so-called Murman coast). The capelan, as a general rule, make 
their appearance simultaneously at the different fishing-stations on the 
north coast of Finmark. In the Varanger-fiord, and on the coast of 
Russia, however, they invariably come somewhat later. The capelan 
do not always appear in the same number along this entire extent of 
