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samples, as in my opinion the literature does not give sufficient assistance, even if the 

 eggs are hatched out, for the separation of this species from the two others occurring in 

 shallow water the larvae of which also have yellow pigment, namely, Gadus minutus and 

 Gadus Esmarki, and my own investigations have not been sufficient for the purpose. 

 Although it is certain that thousands of whiting eggs are present in our samples, for 

 example from the North Sea in April and May, I have not gone further than to describe 

 them as ''Gadus with yellow pigment on hatching", and I have therefore been unwilling 

 to bring these on the charts of distribution in order to avoid showing there anything 

 whose accuracy was in the least in question. 



§ 2. General features of the occurrence 



The Chart IV applies to the months April, May, June and the first half of July. For 

 the North Sea however I have included all our stations for the whole of July, as they are 

 well suited to show how widely distributed and common the young pelagic whiting are in 

 these waters in summer. 



The spawning time is from the beginning of March (or end of February), until at 

 least in June, as will be mentioned in more detail under the different regions. The 

 whiting is one of the latest in spawning of the gadoids. At Iceland accord- 

 ing to our investigations it is even quite the latest, and the young only appear therefore 

 considerably later that the other common Gadus species. 



On account of the late spawning and the tendency the older fry have to a pelagic 

 mode of life, we have had specially good conditions for taking them everywhere in our 

 hauls with the young-fish trawl, and there can be no doubt either that our results give a 

 good picture of the conditions within the regions investigated. At our numerous stations 

 in the North Sea and Skager Rak in July (1905, 1906 and 1907), the older pelagic fry 

 of the whiting occurred practically everywhere in great numbers, whereas most of the 

 other Gadus species are at that time already wanting in our pelagic hauls there. 



The whiting belongs to the group of gadoids whose pelagic young are found in quite 

 shallow water. Practically all the specimens taken by us came from depths less than 200 

 meters and of these again by far the most from- depths less than 100 meters. The greatest 

 depths in the Atlantic ^ over which we found the pelagic whiting fry were 540 meters 

 (between Iceland and the Faeroes, St. 224, 63° 40' N., 10° 38' W. July 31st, 1904), where 

 one specimen of ca. 25 mm. was taken, and 895 meters (N. W. of Scotland, St. 64, May 

 .30th, 1905, 59° 17' N., 7° 29' W.), where 9 specimens of ca. 2 cm. in length were taken. 

 But these are quite the exception, which can in no way affect the main result, that the 

 young whiting pass through the whole of their pelagic development in shallow water within 

 the 200-meter line, indeed for the most part within the 100-meter line. 



§ 3. The geographical distribution 



1. Iceland 

 The following information can be given regarding the spawning of the whiting at 

 Iceland. This does not occur on the east and north coasts, but on the other hand 



1 In the Skager Rak and the Norwegian Channel we took several large whiting fry in July over 

 depths greater than 200 meters, in the Skager ßak indeed even over 650 meters, but the distance here 

 from shallow water is not great. 



