— 20 — 



Iceland), the numbers of the pelagic young cod decrease with the distance from land. 

 Counting up how many have been taken beyond the 1000-meter curve, I find that in the 

 four years there were only 6 specimens in all, namely, 1 at St. 72, 1905, W. of the Hebrides 

 and respectively 4 and 1 at St. 78 and St. 81, 1903, S.E. of Iceland; and at all these places 

 the bottom falls steeply towards deep water so that the distance from shallow water is but 

 slight. Within our region, therefore, I know nothing to correspond with Hjort's discovery 

 of numerous pelagic cod young out over great depths in the Norwegian Sea.^ and I am 

 inclined to believe that in that case it was a question of some exceptional specimens, which 

 constitute only an inappreciably small percentage of the existing cod young; but naturally, 

 it is the direction of the currents prevailing at the place which determines in each case how 

 far the cod young are carried out to sea, and in the different waters and years there may 

 be different conditions in this regard. Altogether however, there is no doubt that the 

 cod is one of the Gadus species whose pelagic young are bound to the shallowest waters 

 nearest the coasts, which is also in good agreement with the fact, that the normal 

 dwelling-place of the bottom-stages is amongst the vegetation ine shallow water, where 

 the young cod appear at a minimum size of 2^3—3 cm. 



With regard to the depths at which the pelagic young cod live, a glance at the tables 

 of the stations where the young-fish trawl was used will show that the earliest stages 

 (less than 1 cm. long) occur nearest the surface, whilst the older are chiefly found deeper 

 down in the water, a condition for the rest holding for most gadoids and which stands 

 in connection with the fact that the eggs occur and are hatched near the surface. 



§ 3. The geographical distribution 



1. Iceland 



The great spring fishery for cod at Iceland takes place, as already described (Fiskeri- 

 undersogelser ved Island og Fsereerne i Sommeren 1903), only on the south and west 

 coasts and the fishery there is of large spawning fish (taken part in by Frenchmen, 

 Icelandic fishermen, British, Germans etc.). The summer and autumn fishery on the other 

 hand takes place mostly on the north and east coasts, and the French, Icelanders, 

 Fseroese and Norwegians etc. take part in it, but this fishery unlike the first is not of the 

 mature, spawning cod but partly of the younger, immature fish, partly of the large spawned 

 cod which in the course of the summer have for a great part left the south and west 

 coasts in seeking for better conditions as to food in the in summer and autumn richer 

 waters off the north and east coasts. 



The main spawning time of the cod at S. Iceland is in March and April, during 

 which months enormous quantities of cod eggs are found floating in the waters on the 

 south and west coasts, a very large number of these again on the relatively short stretch 

 between the Westman Islands and Cape Reykjanes (western point of the south coast) in 

 water with a temperature of 6°— 7°C (see fig. 5, General Part). 



If we sail round Iceland at this time of year, as the "Thor" did in April 1904 in 

 order to investigate these conditions, we find that cod eggs are also present on 

 the west and north-west coasts (where they decrease in quantity towards the north), 



' JoHAN Hjort, JFiskeri og Hvalfangst i det nordlige Norge, Bergeu, 1902. 



