— 55 — JOHS. SCHMIDT 



at the mouth of tho Moray Firth and oil' t.liis in very considerable numbers over depths of 

 ca. 50, ca. 100 and ca. 125 meters (bottom temperatures: 6-89°, 6-81° and 6-52°); and 

 at St 4, May 1st, 1903, E. of Fair Isle (59° 39' N., 0°55'W.), where the depth was 128 

 meters and the bottom temperature 6-75° many haddock eggs were likewise taken. Further, 

 several of the tiny pelagic fry of the haddock were taken at these stations, thus at the 

 last-mentioned 50 per half hour's haul, and at the first three off the Moray Firth the 

 numbers were respectively 9, 30 and 137, and also 389 at a station about midway between 

 the Moray Firth and Norway. 



Our stations on the west and north coasts of Scotland were investigated at the end 

 of May and in June-, and show that the pelagic fry of the haddock occur here in very great 

 quantities within the 200-meter line, where over 100 specimens per half hour was the rule 

 (thus, for example, round the Hebrides : 334, 233, 223. 183, 139, 156 and 154 per half 

 hour). On the whole, the west coast of Scotland is one of the places within the region 

 investigated by us, where the haddock fry occur in greatest abundance and so to speak 

 everywhere in quantities within the 200-meter line. The length of the young haddock 

 taken by the "Thor" was very variable, but as can be' seen from the tables (e. g. St. G5, 

 1905, 95, 1906 and 8, 1908) the majority at the end of May were less than 1 or from 

 ca. 1 — Vh cm. and at the end of June ca. 2 cm. 



With regard to Ireland, Holt (Survey of Fishing Grounds, West Coast of Ireland, 

 p. 397) states that the haddock eggs were extremely abundant at the surface in the end of 

 March, as also that "probably the spawning period extends from February to May inclu- 

 sive, but is chiefly in March and April". 



Our hauls with the young-fish trawl in May and June show that the pelagic haddock 

 fry were found on the south, west and north of Ireland, although not in such large quan- 

 tities as [further to the north on the west coast of Scotland. The greatest number we 

 have taken in one haul (of three-quarters of an hour) was 44, taken late in May 1906 at 

 St. 59 off the mouth of Dingle Bay in Co. Kerry. The majority of these were a little 

 below 1 cm. in length and none over 2V2 cm., which agrees very well with a spawning 

 period in April or March, i. e. within the months given by Holt as the main spawn- 

 ing time. 



The peculiar occurrence of large pelagic fry of the haddock over very great depths to 

 the S. W. of Ireland has already been mentioned in discussing the general features of the 

 occurrence (see p. 52 and Chart III). 



4. North Sea 

 It appears from our investigations in April and May, that the early pelagic fry of the 

 haddock were distributed over the greater part of the North Sea with exception of the 

 most southerly and easterly parts, as can be seen from Chart III. At most of the sta- 

 tions where the haddock young were found, the eggs were also present. In the Skager 

 Kak also and in the Kattegat quantities of both the eggs and the fry were found. We 



' These authors also state that the haddock eggs may occur right from the end of -January to the 

 end of May. 



^ At the end of May 1908 we took the eggs of the haddock at all our stations north and west of 

 Scotland (St. 3—11, 1908). At the same time we found that very large numbers of haddock young are 

 produced on the Kockall Bank (see Appendix). 



