172 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [6] 
menced even earlier. In the Varanger-fiord and on the coast of Russia 
the fish seem to spawn latest. As late as the last days of June I ob- 
tained at Vadsoe, from the stomachs of coal-fish, capelan with fully-ma- 
tured roe, which, however, was not yet ready for spawning. As a gen- 
eral rule the spawning-process occurs on sandy bottom, at a depth of 4 
to 20 fathoms. It is probable, however, that it can also proceed on rocky 
bottom, and at a greater depth; but we are still without reliable data 
on this question. As soon as the roe has been emitted, and has become 
impregnated, the capelan again go out to sea, and the schools of cod 
disappear in proportion as the capelan leave the coast in order to seek 
their accustomed hunting grounds. It happens quite frequently, how- 
ever, that some schools of capelan stay at the bottom of the deep fiords 
till autumn and winter, just as the spring herring are sometimes known 
todo. This seems to have happened with tolerable regularity in the 
innermost and most sheltered portion of the Varanger-fiord, the so-called 
Meskefiord, where, during certain years, the capelan have been observed 
to remain under the ice in considerable numbers. These so-called winter- 
capelan, which must be considered as stragglers which have lost their 
way out to sea, are very lean and lank, but are nevertheless greedily 
pursued by cod and other fish of prey, in the stomachs of which they 
are frequently found. These are probably the capelan, which, on going 
out to sea, are occasionally seen near Vardoe as early as January. 
It is hardly probable that the capelan schools, after having spawned, 
take exactly the same route when they leave the coast as when they came. 
There are many indications that the capelan when they leave the coast, 
at any rate near Hast Finmark, go out to sea in an easterly direction. 
On the coast of Russia the route of the capelan can be traced in an 
easterly direction as far as the fishing-stations near the mouth of the 
White Sea. Farther east there are no capelan fisheries. But the oc- 
currence of capelan observed later in summer on the west coast of 
Nova Zembla makes it probable that at any rate a portion of the capelan 
schools take this route, afterwards following the boundary of the Polar 
current in a westerly direction, past the Bear Island, and thus reach- 
ing their proper home, the sea between Greenland and Spitzbergen. 
B. 
‘ 
ZOOLOGICAL, ANATOMICAL, ANL EMBRYOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 
RELATIVE TO THE CAPELAN. 
Of the investigations made in this direction I shall, in this report, 
only give those points which relate to the spawning and mode of life of 
the capelan while near the coast. 
According to its whole build the capelan is a genuine pelagian fish, 
and both in its internal and external organ.zation shows a great simi- 
larity with the herring; although it is generally in accordance with cer- 
