— :-57 — JOH.S. SCHMIDT 



2'/3 — 3 (•111. Thai. IJio conditions may be different in other waters with different currents, 

 so that large pelagic coalfish fry may be taken in considerable numbers over great depths, 

 is seen from Johan Hjokt's discovery of the fry of this species in the waters between Bear 

 Island and Norway. 



It will be seen from the tables, that just as for the cod, the rule is that the youngest 

 pelagic stages are found nearest the surface, the older somewhat lower down. Yet rela- 

 tively large (ca. 2 — 3 cm. long) fry of the coalfish may appear in quantities right on the 

 surface, as I have several times observed at Iceland. 



§ 3. The geographical distribution 



1. Iceland 

 The investigations at Iceland in 1904 are the most complete for this species as for 

 most of the others, and I shall therefore keep to them in the main. In April 1904 the 

 eggs of the coalfish were found along the whole of the south coast of Iceland from the 

 Horns (St. 12) and westward to Faxe Bay. They were wanting or at most very scarce on 

 the northern part of the west coast and quite lacking on the north and east coasts. The 

 distribution of the pelagic fry in early summer up to July agreed essentially with 

 that of the cod fry, as can be seen from Chart 11. It follows therefore, that the young 

 of the coalfish occur along the whole of the west and south coasts and are 

 lacking on the north and east coasts. Except that the coalfish fry were through- 

 out somewhat fewer in numbers (maximum : 208 specimens per Vs hour's haul) than the 

 cod's, there was a great agreement between the two species. There is this very obvious 

 difference however between the two species, that whilst the pelagic young of the cod are 

 found later in the summer (July, August) in quantities on the north coast and the north- 

 erly part of the east coast, as appears from the 3rd and 4th voyage round the island in 

 1904 (see Chart IX), not a single specimen of the pelagic coalfish fry was 

 taken on these parts of Iceland, neither in 1903, 1904 or 1905, in spite of the 

 fact that the investigations were made in all the months from April to the end of August. 

 There is therefore no such regular drift on a large scale of the pelagic young of the 

 coalfish along the north and east coasts, as we have seen to be the case for the cod (also 

 haddock). Why this should be so, 1 am unable to determine with absolute certainty, but 

 to my mind the most probable reason is that in the summer time, when the east-going 

 current along the north coast begins, the fry of the coalfish are already so far advanced 

 in development that they have for the most part given up the pelagic mode of life and 

 gone in towards the shallow waters on the coasts; in this way they would escape the 

 east-going current. The distribution of the earliest bottom stages of the coalfish round 

 Iceland agrees with this very well, a point we carefully investigated in 1904. It was 

 found that whilst many coalfish fry occurred on the south and west coasts, the numbers 

 rapidly decreased on the north coast as we moved eastwards ^ This becomes specially 



1 It may seem remarkable that in 1904 we were able to find any early bottom stages on the north 

 coast when we had never found a single pelagic stage of the coalfish E. of 22° W. L., but it is obviously 

 easier to find these small fish when they collect together right on the beach in quite shallow water than 

 when they are living pelagically in deeper water, and again, it is possible that in the beginning and 

 middle of July there were a few pelagic young coalfish on the western part of the north coast (see 



