= a 
Similar experiments have also occasionally been made in Norway with the smaller 
sizes of cod, and with similar results. K. Dart has thus marked cod in the fiords on 
the coast of the Skagerak, the recaptured fish bemg found to have made only small mi- 
grations. 
From this we may suppose that the youngest stages of cod also in the Finmark 
waters keep within a more or less restricted area. Their locality during the first years 
of life will thus depend on where they have been carried by the current at the time when 
they first reach the bottom on the great level floor of the Barents Sea. Closer study 
of the distribution of the young stages within the limits of this submarine plain is one 
of the important subjects for investigation presented by the Barents Sea. It is at any 
rate certain, that they are to be found off Bear Island in the North, Cape Kanin in the 
east, and the Murman and Finmark coasts to the south. And there is little room for 
doubt that most of them have their origin in the spawning which takes place on the 
Norwegian skrei banks. 
Finmark codling, “Loddefisk”. 
As to the size of the fish at the time of commencing migration, nothing is known 
as yet; it is, however, reasonable to suppose, that this takes place when they become 
“loddefisk”*) and that the fish from this time onwards lead a wandering life. Their 
area of movement is still however, doubtless restricted to the Barents Sea, and it is scar- 
cely likely that they penetrate west of Finmarken before the time arrives when they 
are ready to join the spawning shoals on their way to the skrei banks. 
Within the limits of the Barents Sea, it is probable that they move, like the skrei, 
northwards and east in summer and autumn; westward and south, 1. e. towards the 
coast of Finmarken, in the winter or spring. Their occurrence here, so close in to land 
as to permit of their frequently being taken in the fjords or from the shore, is doubtless 
largely due to the presence of the capelan. 
The capelan (mallotus villosus) is an Arctic fish, known from the coasts of Labrador, 
Newfoundland, Greenland, Iceland, and the Barents Sea. It occurs on the coast of 
Finmarken only in the spring, spawning in March and April on banks and in bays close 
to the shore. During the summer, it keeps to the northern waters of the Barents Sea. 
The cod taken on the Bear Island Bank in July 1901 were found to contain quantities 
of this fish, and the Norwegian sealers report frequent observations of its occurrence 
in the northern part of the Barents Sea, during summer as far up as Novaya Zemlya 
and Franz Josefs Land. The capelan is found especially near the ice limit, which fre- 
quently serves as an indication of its locality, (vide charts fig. 73 of ice limits, as also 
one previously published by the present writer showing the occurrence of capelan during 
summer)**). 
Migrations of capelan shoals towards the Finmark coast. 
When the enormous shoals of capelan leave their northern quarters in winter, and 
move towards the Finmark and Murman coasts, they draw after them the shoals of 
*) »Loddefisk« is the local name for codling following the capelan, or mallotus (ylodde«) and 
taken by long lines in Finmark waters. 
**) Fiskeri og Hvalfangst. Bergen, 1903. 
