— 32 - 



trawl and the eel drag-seine, the two former being towed by the "Thor's" motor boat, 

 whilst the last was used for hauls to the shore. From the accompanying List p. 31, which 

 shows a selection of the hauls made and all those in which the bottom stages of the cod 

 occurred, it will be seen that these stages only occur sparingly. This is indeed in good 

 agreement with the pelagic investigations off the coast (see for example St. 59, 1906, where 

 only 2 specimens were taken in a one hour's haul), and with the fact that we are here 

 not far from the southern limit for the cod young. 



From the List it will be seen, further, that the young of both Gadus poUachius and 

 G. virens occur in much greater quantities than those of the cod, and the observation on 

 May 29th shows that the bottom stages of the last-named already appear here as early 

 as the end of May. The majority of these specimens were however still only between 2 

 and 2V2 cm. long and showed as yet but weak traces of the tessellated pigmentation. 



We did not investigate the occurrence of the bottom stages further north on the 

 Irish W. coast, but as can be seen from Chart 1, we had some pelagic stations there, which 

 in regard to the numbers of pelagic cod fry correspond nearly to the pelagic stations 

 in the neighbourhood of the south-west coast of Ireland. 



On the south coast of Ireland we had no stations which can give sufficient informa- 

 tion regarding the conditions. I must limit myself therefore to merely mentioning, that 

 the captain of the "Thor", Capt. S. Jorgensen, informs me that he had formerly trawled 

 considerable quantities of cod with running spawn at the end of February off Waterford 1. 



Our investigations seem to agree well with those of Holt (Survey of Fishing Grounds, 

 West Coast of Ireland, 1892, p. 396), from which it appears that cod eggs were found in 

 quantities in March and April on the west coast of Ireland and that the cod spawns 

 chiefly» in March and April, though also in February, as he found the postlarval young in 

 March. To judge from the size of the young stages found by us as the end of May, 

 these must probably have been at least 2 months old. Holt (1. c.) also mentions the oc- 

 currence of the young bottom stages of the cod on the west coast of Ireland, where to 

 judge from the description they seem to be less numerous than the corresponding stages 

 of Gadus virens and poUachius (which also agrees with our investigations). Yet we see 

 from his tables that he once took no less than 60 young cod of ca. 1 inch (25 mm.) in 

 length in one haul in shallow water (ca. 3 fathoms), on 19th May 1891 in Teelin Harbour 

 on the northern part of the west coast, whilst at all the other stations noted by Holt, 

 only quite few specimens were taken. 



4. North Sea 



Our North Sea investigations fell in April and beginning of May, thus at a time of 

 year favourable to the finding of the pelagic young, as the young postlarval stages of 

 1 cm. or thereabouts which appear at that time are very easy to catch. 



As can be seen from the Chart, all our hauls in the North Sea in April and begin- 

 ning of May gave pelagic cod young ^j and several of the hauls were very rich (especially 



1 Capt. J0R6ENSEN tells me that he has also taken spawning cod in the Irish Sea (in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Isle of Man). Further, amongst the young gadoids sent me by Mr. H. W. L. Holt of 

 Dublin, there is a sample taken on May 19th, 1904, in Lambay Deep which contains 2 pelagic specimens 

 of Gadus callarias (length: 16 and 19 mm.). 



2 Eggs of the cod were taken at practically all the stations where pelagic cod young were found. 



