— 101 — .lOHS. SCHMIDT 



judge from the data (absence of the fry but presence of the eggs and spawning females) 

 spawning takes place at the Faeroes about the month of May. 



3. British Isles 



For the east coast of Scotland the spawning time of the ling is April to Juno inclu- 

 sive (according to Mc Intosh and Masterman) and our observations agree with this. Thus 

 in the beginning of May 1905 we did not find any of the ling fry at our stations off the 

 Moray Firth. In July on the other hand numerous specimens were found (the majority 

 with a length of ca. 1 cm. or less), up to 35 per half hour's haul. 



Our stations N., N. W. and "W. of Scotland and W. and S. of the Shetlands were 

 investigated at the end of May, in June and July and a few also in August and the 

 first days of September. As the fry of the ling were taken at all the stations lying 

 within the 200-meter line and often in considerable numbers, e. g. 159, 120, 97, 72 

 etc. specimens per half hour's haul, it is very obvious in how great quantities the 

 ling must reproduce in these waters. The majority of specimens taken late in 

 May (1905, 1908) were small, under 1 cm. in length, from which we may conclude that 

 they were not spawned earlier than in April; a few were however a little larger, and 

 further, a few small specimens taken in the beginning of September 1905 W. and N. of 

 Scotland show that the spawning may extend right into the summer. It should be expressly 

 remarked, however, that the smaller numbers taken at this time show clearly that they do 

 not belong to the main spawning. 



With regard to Ireland, Holt (Survey 1. c, p. 402) states that "it appears that spawn- 

 ing takes place in April and May, and as late, in some instances, as July, as a female 

 was only half ripe about the middle of June". Our catches of the pelagic fry in May and 

 June agree with this^ In these months we found them along the S.W. and the whole 

 of the W. coast, although not in such large numbers as further north off the coasts of 

 Scotland; the largest numbers per half hour's haul were 16, 15, 11 and 9, which are 

 sufficient to show however, that the ling spawns here in considerable quantities. 



4. North Sea 



A glance at the Chart over our stations in the North Sea and Skager Eak shows at 

 once that the pelagic fry of the ling only occur in the northern part of the North Sea 

 and in the Skager Kak, but are lacking in the central and southern parts. And it is only 

 in the most northern parts, especially the north-western, that the fry occur in large quan- 

 tities; elsewhere at the other stations only a few specimens were taken. 



As the investigations in the North Sea were made in April, May and July (as also in Au- 

 gust and September), and in the Skager Rak in June and July 1907, the conditions were favour- 

 able to finding the pelagic fry of the ling. Almost all our specimens were small from the 

 North Sea and the Skager Rak, the majority ca. 1 cm. or between 1 and IVscm., and but few 

 were between 2 and 2^/2 cm. They were taken in June and July, not in April and very 

 few (2 small specimens at St. 26 1905, 61° 14' N., 1° 19'E., depth 166 meters) in the first 

 half of May, which indicates a relatively late spawning here as in the Atlantic. The 



' Late in May most of the specimens were small, under 1 cm. long, and in the latter half of Juno the 

 majority had a length of 1 — Pia cm. 



