— 122 — 



our Atlantic^ gadoids which spawns at the lowest temperatures, especially on the western 

 part of the north coast in connection with the considerable rise of temperature which occurs 

 in the course of the summer. Concerning this "after-spawning", which is on an very small 

 scale and quite unimportant in comparison with the spring spawning, a few words will 

 be said later on account of its considerable scientific interest. 



B. The warm portions of the Icelandic waters (south and west coasts) 



The charts figs. 5 and 6 above for April and May— June give just what is character- 

 istic in the distribution of the temperatures at the time when the spawning of the prin- 



Fig. 8. Observations of temperature during the fourth voyage of the "Thor" round Iceland in 

 August 1904 (cf. Chart IX). See also explanation to fig. 5. 



cipal gadoids takes place (see also fig. 4, p. 117). We see from these that the temperature 

 in the coastal belt on the south coast varied in April from ca. 6° — ca. 7°; on the southern 

 part of the west coast (off Faxe Bay) it was somewhat lower, namely ca. 5^/3° and consider- 

 ably lower ca. 3° on the northern part. In May and June the temperature rose to some extent; 

 it should be remarked especially that on the southern part of the west coast the temperature 

 in June varied from ca. 7° — 7^/ä° and on the northern part mostly from ca. 5^3°— ß'/s". 



The characteristics of the warm portions of the Icelandic waters, at least of the south 

 and south-west coasts, are briefly the high winter and the low summer temper- 

 ature. Even the surface water does not reach above 12°— 13° in the summer time and 

 the amplitude of the yearly fluctuations at a depth of ca. 50 meters is hardly more than 2° — 3°. 



The warm portions of the Icelandic waters are characterized by the following : the cod 

 {Gadus callarias), Norway pout [G. Esmarki) and haddock ((?. ceglefinus) spawn there in 



