— 14 — 



numbers accompanying them indicate the number of specimens taken per half 

 hour's haul with the young-fish trawl. The investigations were made in the months 

 of April — September, but for most species only the stations in the first three months are 

 included (April — June), as the fry later in the year have for the most part given up the 

 pelagic mode of life, so that an incorrect picture would have been given if all the stations 

 had been included where we did not find them in our pelagic hauls (negative stations). 



The results from the Irish investigations are marked on the charts with "Ir" and the 

 English with "E". The English hauls were made with the same apparatus as ours, but 

 other pelagic nets were mostly used in the Irish investigations. At the Irish stations the 

 number of specimens, which for the rest seldom exceeds 1 — 2 in the samples sent me, 

 are therefore not given as no comparison is possible on account of the difference in the 

 apparatus. 



II. SPECIAL PART 



Distribution of the various species 



In the present section the features of the distribution of the various species will be des- 

 cribed. The region investigated is therefore subdivided for convenience into 6 portions, which 

 are also dealt with separately, so that it will always be easy to find what is said concerning 

 the occurrence of a species within each subdivision. The 6 subdivisions are as follows: 



1. Iceland (S., W., N. and E. coasts as also the waters off these in the north to ca. 

 671/3° N. and in the west to ca. 30° W.). 



2. The Faeroes and the waters round those islands, ßockall Bank^. 



3. British Isles (including the waters west of the Shetlands, Orkneys, Scotland 

 and Ireland and the waters S.W. and S. of Ireland but not the Channel). 



4. NorthSea with the Skager Rak. 



5. The Channel (bounded in the east by a line from Dover to Cape Grisnez and 

 in the west by a line from Land's End to Ushant). 



6. Bay of Biscay (the waters between the north coast of Spain and a circle of 

 latitude through Ushant). 



For the species occurring in deep waters^ 3 subdivisions may be made: 

 (1). The waters N. and E. of the Submarine Ridge between Greenland, Iceland, the 

 Faeroes and the Hebrides (including the eastern part of the Fseroe Channel), where the 

 water already at 600 meters depth or less has a negative temperature. 



(2 a). The waters S. and W. of the Submarine Ridge between Greenland, Iceland, the 

 Fœroes and the Hebrides, southwards as far as the large Outer Bank W. of Ireland. The 

 temperatures are here always positive in deep water and reach 8 ° in 1000 meters in the 

 southernmost parts of the region. 



* Whilst this paper was being printed, investigations were also in progress by the "Thor" on the 

 ßockal Bank at the end of May 1908. The results of these investigations which are included on the 

 Charts of distribution and in the tables will be found discussed in the Appendix at tlie end of this paper. 



^ When "deep water" is spoken of here quite generally, depths greater than lOCO meters are meant. 



