— 89 — JOES. SCHMIDT 



by saying that it belongs especially to the Atlantic Slope, without going down to the 

 great oceanic depths or on the other hand coming into quite shallow water. Our dis- 

 coveries of the pelagic fry agree very well with this. It will be seen from the Chart that 

 the small pelagic fry of Gadicukis argenteus everywhere occur over depths which are 

 considerably greater than those over which the young of all the other gadoids were 

 taken , with exception of the Poutassou. This appears distinctly from the Chart if we 

 compare the distribution of this species with that of the cod. It will be noticed that of 

 all the numerous stations where the fry of these two species were found, there were ex- 

 tremely few where they occurred together, and these few stations are likewise at places 

 where the 200 and the 1000-meters lines run close to one another, i. e. where the slope 

 of the sea-bottom is steep. Of the many specimens we have taken, only very few 

 were found within the 200-meter line (St. 65, 86, 121, 122, 123, 1905 and St. 91, 

 1906), and even between 200 and 1000 meters relatively few specimens were taken. 

 By far the most of our small specimens were taken beyond' or somewhat within 

 the 1000-meter line, as will be readily seen from the Chart and tables for May — June 

 1905 and 1906 (cf. St. 63 and 72, 1905, where several hundreds were taken, quite small, 

 over depths of ca. 1200 meters). On the basis of this distribution of the small Gadiculus 

 fry, I conclude that the species spawns in the Atlantic in greatest quantities 

 about the 1000-meter line, both beyond and within this, in the latter case however 

 mainly at places where the slope is steep, and scarcely much within the 200-meter line. 

 From the nature of the water in which the small fry were found, we may also conclude 

 that Gadiculus only spawns in the true Atlantic water of high salinity and temperature. 



Regarding the spawning time I have no direct ohservations , but as usual it is pos- 

 sible to draw certain conclusions indirectly. I may mention first of all that Holt (Survey, 

 I. c. p. 400) found many specimens on July 4th which "appeared to be spent". 



At the end of May and in the beginning of June most specimens in the northern 

 part of the region were small, less than 10 mm., several even quite small, e. g. 4 — 6 mm. 

 and cannot therefore be considered to have been spawned earlier than in April. On the 

 S. W. of Ireland specimens under 1 cm. in length were also found in May and June (1906), 

 but the majority were somewhat and some much larger, from which we may believe that 

 the spawning time here is earlier than further to the north, yet according to the avail- 

 able data scarcely earlier than at the end of winter or beginning of spring. When the 

 waters S. W. of Ireland and the Bay of Biscay were investigated late in August and in 

 the first half of September 1906, the pelagic fry of Gadiculus were no longer taken, and 

 late in August 1905 when we had stations W. of the Faeroes and N. of Scotland at the 

 places where we had found the pelagic fry in quantities at the end of May and early in 

 June of the same year, these were now present in much smaller numbers. This shows 

 undoubtedly that the spawning of this species takes place for the most part 

 already in spring, whilst the numbers that spawn in the summer are much 

 fewer. That a few may probably spawn even so late as early in July is seen for example 



' Tliough a few specimens were found pelagically over very great depths (3000 — 5000 meters for 

 example) S.W. of Ireland, it may not be concluded from this that they were spawned out there; in the 

 first place these were always older specimens which might well have been carried away from the spawning 

 place, and in the second place some older haddock fry were also found at these places, which clearly shows 

 that the waters in which they occurred had been earlier over shallower depths. 



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