4 Mindeskrift for J. Steenstrup. XIV. 



already been emphasized by Holt and Collett as charac te ristic of the species, namely, 

 the large, readily deciduous scales and the highly remarkable mucous cavities on the 

 upper side of the head, which are already present in the young, though still covered 

 by the skin. We may add to these the distribution of the primary pigment in the larval 

 and postlarval stages, which I have found to be divergent from the types of pigmenta- 

 tion occurring in the Gadus species and which approaches more to that known in the 

 genus Merluccius. 



Within the Mediterranean, the waters from which the species was first known, it 

 has been found at various piaces, hitherto however only in the western basin (west of 

 Italy), namely, at Algiers, Messina, Palermo, Naples, Genoa and Nizza. Outside the 

 Mediterranean it has been recorded from the coast of Sudan, Morocco, Gibraltar Bay 

 (Holt and Byrne 1909), Bay of Biscay, west of the British Isles, the northern North 

 Sea and coast of Norway from the Skagerak up to Trondhjems Fjord (63°30' N. L.). 



Fig. 1. Gadiculus Thori. Fig. 2. Gadiculus argetiteus. 



CoLLETT (1901) also States regarding its distribution (p. 9), that "G. argenteus belongs 

 to the most widely distributed of all the Gadoids", and that "its region of distribution 



extends from the African coasts a little north of the equator up to 63°30' N. L. 



(Trondhjems Fjord)". It deserves to be mentioned, that the species is not found in 

 the western part of the Atlantic. 



The depth, at which Gadiculus occurs, is distinctly greater than for the true Gadus 

 species, the species, according to Collett (1901, p. 10), seldom being found at less depth 

 than ca. 180 meters, whilst it has been taken in quantities at depths of 400 — 600 meters. 



Lastly, it may be remarked, that I have described (1905), (1906), (1909) the post- 

 larval, pelagic stages from the waters west of the Faeroes and the British Isles, when 

 I was carrying out investigations during the years 1903 — 1908 with the Danish research- 

 steamer "Thor" on the stretch from Iceland to the Bay of Biscay. On these cruises 

 far more specimens of the species were obtained than had hitherto been known, at stages 

 from 5 mm. and upwards, and it proved, that the pelagic stages of this species occur 

 deeper down in the water than the corresponding developmental stages of the Gadus 

 species. 



