- 60 — 



evident from a comparison of the charts showing the pelagic stages of these Gadus species, 

 which are represented there. In the first place it was only along the western part 

 of the south coast, that pelagic fry of the whiting were taken in any great 

 quantity, but even there, there was only one single haul where the number reached to 

 over 50 per half hour's haul, namely, at St. 189, 1904, where 237 were taken in one of 

 our hauls. Otherwise the greatest numbers were only 50, 41, 29, 14 and 12, all the rest 

 being less than 10 per half hour, and numbers of hauls were made in the three years at 

 Iceland without a single specimen being found. 



2. The Fœroes 



In May 1903, 1904 and 1905 various eggs were taken at the Faeroes, which on hat- 

 ching gave a Gadus larva with yellow pigment, and of which a great part certainly 

 belonged to Gadus merlangiis and the remainder to Gadus Esmarlci. As mentioned previ- 

 ously however, p. 58, I do not consider this evidence sufficient reason for representing the 

 whiting eggs on the Chart of distribution. In spite of the numerous hauls made at the 

 Faeroes in May, only two quite small fry of the whiting in all were taken, from which we 

 see that we are still very near to the spawning time. In June no investigations were 

 made at the Faeroes nor in the first half of July,, but in the latter half of this month the 

 pelagic fry (length: 3 — 5 cm.) were taken at several stations, though not in larger quantity 

 than 14 specimens per half hour, thus quite few. The whiting fry seem therefore not to 

 occur in very large numbers at the Fœroes and this is so far in agreement with further 

 data, namely, that rather few whiting were taken in our hauls with the trawl or eel seine 

 or on lines. It has to be noted however that no investigations were made there in June 

 and the first half of July, which is just the period when we might expect the whiting fry 

 to be present in greatest quantity. But although we might probably have found a larger 

 number of fry than we did at the end of July in our hauls with the young-fish trawl, 

 there is no doubt, to judge from the conditions elsewhere, that these hauls which were 

 exceedingly rich in cod and haddock fry (cf. St. 125, 1905), would also have yielded large 

 quantities of whiting fry if these had been present in numbers. As a result of all our 

 investigations at the Fœroes I have no doubt either that the whiting are there relatively 

 scarce and that but few fry of the whiting are produced in comparison with the quantities 

 of cod, coalfish and haddock fry. 



3. British Isles 



Concerning the spawning time on the east coast of Scotland, Mc Intosh and Master- 

 man state (1. c. p. 257), that it "appears to extend on the east coast from March to June, 

 but principally dimng April and May, so that it is rather later than that of the cod". 



Our hauls in the beginning of May 1905 off the Moray Firth gave but few and 

 mostly small whiting fry (see St. 19, 1905) which agrees well with the information given 

 by these authors on the spawning time. 



On the west coast of Scotland our observations were made late in May as also 

 in June, and they show that the whiting fry occurred there everywhere in quantities 

 within the 200-meter line (number per half hour's haul, for example, 133, 67, 63, 54, 40 

 etc. and no hauls with negative result). Late in May and in the beginning of 

 June most of the specimens were ca. 1—1^/2 cm. in length and late in June ca. IV2 — 2V2 cm. 



