- 34 - 



trawl and similar apparatus. Of gadoids these hauls contain Gadus minutus and luscus 

 as also Gadus pollachius. Of the last especially, along with which the cod fry elsewhere 

 occurs in quantity, I have seen several hundreds of specimens, and it is present in prac- 

 tically all the samples ; but in all these I have only found a single Gadus callarias (ca. 6 

 —7 cm.), which may be regarded as the exception which proves the rule. 



There is however an observation by J. B. Browne (Report on the eggs and larvae of 

 teleostean fishes observed at Plymouth in the spring of 1902, J. M. B. A., vol. VI (N. S.), 

 1900 — 03, p. 603), which should be noted here. Browne found namely, on March 15th at 

 Plymouth, an egg which a few days later gave a cod larva (with quite the same pigment 

 in bars as figured by Mc Intosh and Masterman, PI. IX, Fig. 1). The author remarks him- 

 self that it was rather strange to find a cod egg here, and only one was taken. Never- 

 theless the observation is interesting as the exception which proves the rule. 



All the above thus indicate that very few cod are produced in the Channel. At least, 

 the production can only be very slight in comparison e. g. with the North Sea. 



6. Bay of Biscay 



Our observations in shallow water in the Bay of Biscay are all for the beginning of 

 May 1906, and the stations lie partly in the neighbourhood of Brittany partly close to the 

 boundary between France and Spain. Although the fry of other gadoids were taken at 

 several of these the eggs or fry of the cod were never found. This indeed was not to be 

 expected, as they were already lacking in the Channel. The temperature in 50 meters 

 depth at the stations in the Bay of Biscay varied from 10° to ca. 12"^ and there is no doubt 

 that we are here to the south of the limit for the reproduction of the cod. In the Bay 

 of Biscay older specimens of the cod are said to be scarce (cf Moread , Poissons de la 

 France, III, 1881, p. 237) at least in the southern part of the Bay. 



3. Gadus virens Linné, Coalfish or Green cod (Chart II) 



§ 1. Remarks on the identification 



I have not been able to carry through the determination of the eggs of the coalfish 

 in all our samples, and the chart of distribution only refers therefore to the postlarval 

 stages. As mentioned under Gadus callarias, it is only rarely that it is necessary to 

 count the vertebrae in order to make sure of the determination of the coalfish. The same 

 is the case sometimes also in separating it from Gadus pollachius, as this species at cer- 

 tain stages (especially ca. 15 — 25 mm. long) resembles G. virens somewhat (see under 

 G. pollachius, p. 44). In the accompanying Table 1 give therefore the number of vertebrae 

 found in Gadus virens. 



A comparison of these numbers with those for Gadus pollachius shows that in cases 

 of doubt whether a specimen is G. virens or G. pollachius, the question can be solved by 

 counting the abdominal vertebrae, of which G. virens has 23—25 whilst G. pollachius only 

 has from 20 to 22. Contrasted with G. callarias the question can be settled just as eas- 

 ily, as this species (see p. 18) practically never has more than 19 abdominal vertebrae. For 



