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the rest to the three papers by Damas, Redeke and Schmidt, which contain numerous 

 interesting and important data, which we cannot further discuss here. Regarding these 

 movements it may be said in general, that they are of two kinds according as the eggs 

 are spawned in coastal water or in the Atlantic water. 



The eggs of the fishes spawning in the coastal waters are mostly carried by the 

 currents in the direction from south to north. According to the spawning time, first the 

 cod eggs then the haddock eggs and lastly the whiting eggs are involved in the move- 

 ments of the currents. 



The eggs of the Atlantic water are carried towards the coasts with the current 

 forcing its way into the North Sea. The influence of the current can be noticed here in 

 the different species at different times, according to the distance from the coasts at which 

 the eggs are spawned, first in the coalfish, ling and torsk, then in the "purely Atlantic" 

 forms such as Gadictthis argenteiis and poutassou, Molva byrkelange and the eel. 



Finally, we may just briefly mention here where the earliest bottom stages are to 

 be found, though we have only material for the discussion of the 4 species, cod, whiting, 

 haddock and coalfish. In discussing these we would refer to the four Charts (figs. 12, 

 13, 14 and 15), on which we have endeavoured to represent both the spawning places of 

 these 4 species and also the distribution of the bottom stages by means of the letters B 

 and L. L indicates the bottom stages of the littoral region (vegetation region), B the 

 region beyond this. The different size of the letters indicates the varying abundance in 

 the occurrence of these stages'. 



The bottom stages of the cod (see Chart, fig. 12) occur in great quantities on all the 

 coastal margins of the North Sea and Norwegian Sea. A great part of the quantities of 

 fry on each coastal stretch undoubtedly comes from the spawning which takes place on 

 the banks in the immediate vicinity; how large the quantities are which may come from 

 elsewhere, it is difficult to say, this can only be demonstrated on a few coasts. Thus, 

 great movements can be noticed at the outer boundaries of the spawning places, as for 

 example at Finmark and Iceland. At Finmark and in the Barentz Sea we find large 

 quantities of littoral young fish and other bottom stages from the more southerly spawning 

 places, and at Iceland the largest quantities of the littoral stages of the cod fry occur 

 just on the north and east coasts, where no spawning whatsoever takes place. For the 

 interpretation of the natural history of the cod it is important to observe that its first 

 bottom stages may occur both in the littoral region and in greater depths. The latter is 

 the case especially in the Barentz Sea and in the Skager Rak. 



The bottom stages of the whiting (fig. 15) cannot be compared with the other 

 species, as the pelagic stage in it lasts so much longer than in the others. We notice 

 nevertheless on the Chart (fig. 10), that the small fry of the whiting occur on all the 

 coastal margins of the North Sea, as also further north on the Norwegian coast though 

 but very little spawning takes place here in the fjords. 



In the northern part of the North Sea scarcely any quantities worth mentioning of 

 the young bottom stages occur. The whiting in fact only seeks the bottom in the south- 

 ern, shallow part of the North Sea, where the rise of temperature in the summer is felt 



I We may note that it is not our intention here to represent the whole region where the young bottom 

 stages are distributed. The absence of letters to the we.st of Great Britain, for example, does not mean the 

 absence of the young stages. On this we would refer specially to Schmidt's paper. 



