— 82 — 



the same is the case with specimens from some hauls with the shrimp trawl made by the 

 Plymouth Laboratory. Thus, there is one haul made on April 11th 1905 in Cawsand 

 Bay which contains 6 Gadus luscus of 2^2 and 2 of 3 cm. in length, and another haul 

 from Jennicliff Bay, March 29th 1905, which contains a Gadus luscus of 2-6 cm. in 

 length. These last specimens were undoubtedly spawned earlier than in March, probably 

 not later than in January, which agrees well so far with Holt's discovery of ripe females 

 in January. 



On the other hand, however, we have found small specimens, only ca. 8 ram. long, 

 both at the end of June 1905 and at the end of August 1906, from which we must con- 

 clude that spawning may also take place much later than in March. Thus, there is no 

 doubt that the small pelagic specimens we found late in August in the extreme east of 

 the Channel were certainly not spawned earlier than in July. 



Altogether it appears that the spawning of Gadus luscus in the Channel is spread 

 over a great part of the year\ at least from January to July, even if it is also undoubt- 

 edly the case that the majority do not spawn later than in early springe. 



6. Bay of Biscay 

 Our investigations in the first half of May 1906 show that the small pelagic fry of 

 Gadus luscus occur both in the most northerly and the most southerly parts of the Bay 

 of Biscay, and we may therefore conclude that this species spawns along the whole At- 

 lantic coast of France and the north coast of Spain. That we only took such an ex- 

 tremely small number of specimens, namely, not more than 2 per half hour, can hardly 

 be considered as evidence that the species only spawns there to a small extent; against 

 this speaks its whole distribution and also the fact, that I saw numerous fresh specimens, 

 both small and large, on the fish market at San Sebastian (along with Gadus minutus, 

 pollachius, and especially Merluccius). I would rather ascribe the small numbers of the 

 pelagic fry in our hauls to the fact, that our stations were out over too deep water for 

 this species, which prefers quite shallow water with stony ground covered with algse. 

 According to friendly information from Dr. Ad. Cligny of Boulogne-sur-Mer Gadus luscus is 

 common in the Bay of Biscay ä). 



10. Gadus Poutassou (Risso). Poutassou (Chart IV) 



§1. Remarks on the identification 



The eggs are unknown, but all the postlarval stages are easily distinguished from 

 those of other species. The quite small postlarval stages may resemble those of Gadus 

 luscus a little, and the somewhat older stages have a superficial likeness to Gadus nier- 

 langus. 1 give here the number ot vertebrae found in adult Gadus Poutassou, most of 



• This appears already from the hauls at St. 26 1906, where the specimens taken were very unequal in size. 



^ This may be concluded from the hauls in the end of April and beginning of May, which were much 

 richer in specimens than the hauls in June and August. 



^ It occurs at least so far south in the Atlantic as off the coast of Morocco, according to V. Fietsch- 

 MANN (Aunal. d. k. k. Naturhist. Hofmuseums, Wien, p. 101, 1906) who examined some specimens during his 

 stay onboard a German trawler fishing there. 



