— 62 — 



imens per half hour's haul ' , and large numbers also occurred on the stations of this 

 line in the first days of July 1905. 



In the month of July the pelagic fry of the whiting, as mentioned, occurred in quan- 

 tities practically at all places where investigations were made in the North Sea, and even 

 so late as the middle or end of September, when the "Thor" was on the return voyage 

 from the Atlantic, we found large pelagic fry of the whiting in the North Sea, Skager 

 Eak and Kattegat, from which we see that the whiting fry retain the pelagic mode of life 

 for a long time. 



Further, it is extraordinary what differences in size these pelagic fry of the whiting 

 may show even in the same haul. This is seen in numbers of our hauls, but a single 

 case taken at random may be sufficient as an example. At St. 295, Sept. 9th, 1904 (Skager 

 Kak, 57° 45-5' N., 10°35'E.), a haul at the surface with the young-fish trawl gave 36 

 young whiting which had the following lengths : 



cm. 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 



No^^ Ï 1 2 5 3 8 4 7 1 1111 



They varied thus right from 2 to IVh cm. This shows that the spawning time of 

 the whiting must be of long duration. 



5. The Channel 



Our investigations at the end of April and beginning of May 1906 show that pelagic 

 whiting fry occur in considerable quantities in the Channel , and especially in the western 

 part, where we obtained up to 113 specimens per half hour's haul. Most of those found at 

 this time of year were small, less than 1 cm. in length, so that they could scarcely be 

 considered to have been spawned earlier than in March and April. 



On our cruise through the Channel in the end of June 1905 we also found the pe- 

 lagic whiting fry (up to ca. ,80 specimens pr. half hour's haul), the majority of which were 

 only ca. 1 cm. or under. These must have been spawned therefore considerably later in 

 the year than those mentioned above, scarcely earlier than in May so far as the majority 

 are concerned. 



When the "Thor" was returning through the Channel late in August and mid-Sep- 

 tember 1906, no pelagic fry of the whiting were taken, due probably to the fact that at 

 this advanced time of year they have gone into the shallower waters near the coasts. 



If we study the earlier data from the Channel, we find that Holt and Scott (Journ. 

 Mar. Biol. Assoc, N. S. vol. V, 1897—99, p. 156 et seq.) note the presence of the whiting 

 eggs in March, April and May, though not in any great numbers, and the pelagic fry are 

 not noted. 



Concerning the occurrence of the older whiting in the south-western district. Holt 

 states (ibid. p. 138) that "the whiting, G. merlangus, is at times abundant, but erratic in 

 its distribution", and the reason why Holt and Scott (1. c.) did not find the pelagic 



1 St. 17 (54° 17' N., 6° 16' E., depth 38 M.) gave 19 spec, per »/a hour 



— 19 (5a° 52' N., 3° 57' K, — 25 — ) - 33 — — 



— 20 (52° 14' N., 3° 05' E., — 35 — ) — 3 — — 



— 21 (51° 48' N., 2° 29' E., — 36 — ) — 105 — - 



— 22 (51° 17' N., 1° 49' E., - 38 - ) - 10 - — 



