— 6 - 



over the large, until then but little investigated international region, and (2) to develop 

 concise and purposeful methods in the practical work. 



In regard to methods this period shows considerable advance. The various apparatus, 

 especially for the catch of young fishes, have been improved and the members of the 

 Committee have repeatedly dwelt upon the important question of the employment of 

 uniform, comparable apparatus. Our knowledge of the systematic classification of the 

 gadoid species , especially of the earliest stages , has made great progress during these 

 years; we refer here especially to the papers of Dr. Johs. Schmidt'. During the sitting of 

 the Committee in Hamburg in February 1904 Professor Heincke showed the results 

 of his, at that time incomplete investigations, on the determination of the age and rate of 

 growth of fishes by means of the study of the otoliths and various bones and vertebrae, 

 shoulder girdle, opercular bones etc. The results of these important investigations have 

 since been published by Heincke 2. In Hjort's report to the meeting at Amsterdam 

 (February 1906) information was given on the results of investigations which were being 

 carried out in the Norwegian fisheries laboratory, chiefly by Dr. Damas, in order to elaborate a 

 practical method of determining on a large scale the age of the gadoids by means of 

 samples of scales. 



Through these three advances, the improved apparatus, greater knowledge of the 

 structure and characteristics of the early stages and the new methods for the determination 

 of age, the possibility of attaining new results was considerably extended. Just for this 

 reason, however, the critical treatment of the data, both of the observations and of the 

 collected material, necessarily involved the undesirability of the early publication of a 

 report. To this we must add, that the work of the Committee was indeed only a part 

 of the whole programme of the international investigations, which was also the reason why 

 the collection of the material could not proceed on so methodical and regular lines as 

 was desirable, as each of the different research-steamers had to serve several other pur- 

 poses. Thus, many links were still lacking in the chain which was to embrace the great 

 questions constituting the work of the Committee. 



It was resolved in consequence, at the meeting in Copenhagen in the summer of 

 1905, that the whole of the year 1906 should also be devoted to the collection of the 

 necessary, but still lacking material, in order to be able to give an extensive General 

 Report in the first place on the biology of the gadoid species in relation to the fisheries. 



At the meetings in Copenhagen (July 1905) and Amsterdam (February 1906) a detailed 

 programme was accepted for these supplementary investigations, and in the course of the 

 year 1906 a material was collected, which in extent and importance may well be con- 

 sidered large. The Danish, Dutch, English, German and Norwegian research-steamers 

 especially have in that year made extremely large contributions towards the solution of 

 the tasks of the Committee, and the statistical material, which the Scottish investigations 



1 JOHS. Schmidt, The Pelagic Post-larval Stages of the Atlantic Species of Gadus etc. Meddelelser fra 

 Kommissionen for Havundersegelser. Serie: Fiskeri. Bind I and II. 1905 — 1907. 



2 Cf. the reports by Heincke in the first 5 Annual Reports printed in "die Beteiligung Deutschlands an 

 der internationalen Meeresforschung". Berlin, 1904, 1906 and 1908. 



