— 53 — .loi IS. SCHMIDT 



our iiiiiiu rrsiill., luunoly, lliul. ilie young haddock Ijciong normally to moderate depths, so 

 that it is undoubtedly the few which get beyond the 200-meter line. 



It will be seen from the tables that the youngest fry of the haddock occur nearest 

 the surface, whilst the somewhat older are everywhere found deeper down. In this regard 

 the liaddock is thus like most of the other gadoids dealt with in this work. 



In contrast to the species described hitherto, the young bottom stages of the haddock 

 are not found in the shallow waters of the tidal region. We have therefore only taken 

 very few young haddock in our numerous shore-hauls with the eel seine. On the other 

 hand these stages occur in our hauls with the otter trawl or young-fish trawl on the bottom, 

 e. g. in depths of 50—100 meters. 



§ 3. The geographical distribution 

 1. Iceland 



On the coasts of Iceland a large fishery for haddock is carried on by German, English 

 and other steam-trawlers and by the sailing vessels of Iceland, France etc. Whilst the 

 older stages of the haddock can be found on all coasts of the island, this is not the case 

 with the eggs and the pelagic fry. The investigations of 1903—04—05 showed that 

 whilst the haddock eggs occur both on the south and west-coasts they 

 are absent on the north and east coasts. The eggs occurred in greatest quantities 

 at places where the bottom temperature was ca. 7° (Compare fig. 6, General Part), and in 

 water of less than ca. öVä — 6° no haddock eggs were found, from which we see that the 

 haddock requires a somewhat higher temperature than the cod for spawning purposes. 

 With regard to the spawning time, this falls mainly in April and May on the south 

 coast, more especially from the middle of April to the middle or end of May. Both in 



1904 and 1905 we trawled several hundreds of large haddock at Ingolfshöföi late in May, 

 and in all of these the sexual organs were examined. In my journal for 1904 (May 25.) 

 I have written : "The haddock is right in the middle of spawning or perhaps a little past 

 this. A very large number had running spawn and milt!" For 1905 (May 23.-25.) I 

 have in my journal : "Most of the mature fish have spawned but in many there was still 

 running spawn and milt". Although the date was the same, the spawning seems to have 

 been somewhat more advanced in 1905 than in 1904. This is perhaps in some connection 

 with the fact, that the temperature was a little higher in 1905 than in 1904 (1904 : surface 

 temperature 7-40°, bottom temperature (57 meters) 6-82° (see fig. 6, General Part); 1905: 

 surface temperature 7-51°, bottom temperature (58 meters) 6-90°). Neither in 1904 nor in 



1905 were any of the spawning fish under ca. 50 cm. in length. In 1905 the length of the 

 spawning females varied from 52 to 78 cm., in 1904 from 48 — 81 cm. and in both years 

 the majority of the spawning females were grouped about 55 cm. in length (IV-Group). 



On the west coast, where the haddock eggs were found so far north as to off Patrix 

 Fjord (St. 158, 1904) and might perhaps be found even somewhat farther north, the spawn- 

 ing time is a little later than on the south coast; at least, I have found (and hatched 

 out) haddock eggs there as late as June 22nd. 



With regard to the distribution of the pelagic haddock fry on the coasts of Iceland, 

 the four voyages round the island in 1904, during which the distribution of the young 

 cod was investigated, have yielded exceedingly good information regarding the haddock, as 

 can be seen from Chart X. In the main the distribution of the haddock fry is very 



