BIGELOW: EXPLORATIONS OF THE COAST WATERS. 279 



captures of Silver Hake fry are similarly limited to the immediate 

 neighborhood of the coast in the southern and southwestern corner 

 of the Gulf (Fig. S3) though its eggs occur all along the coastal zone 

 from Cape Cod to Nova Scotia; and this has so consistently been the 

 experience for the past four summers, during which so many hauls 

 have been made in various parts of the Gulf, that it must be accepted 

 as the normal condition for the summer. 



All this, of course, suggests a migration, or rather drift, of the 

 young fry, westerly and southwesterly around the periphery of the 

 Gulf of Maine, past Cape Cod, and so either to Nantucket Shoals or 

 Georges Bank; and, such a movement would agree very well with the 

 circulation of the Gulf (p. 234), while,-^s is now well known, the young 

 Cod in Norwegian waters perform even more extensive migrations, 

 due to hydrographic causes (Hjort, 1914). But this suggestion must 

 be tested much more extensively before it can be accepted as proved. 



In northern European waters the European Hake is regarded as 

 a southern or summer fish, and the distribution of the eggs and lar\-ae 

 of the Silver Hake, particularly the great abundance of the latter off 

 Marthas Vineyard and further west in 1913 (Stations 10063, 10070) 

 indicates that this is likewise true of the Silver Hake as compared with 

 such typical boreal species as the Cod or Haddock. But though Cod 

 and Hake ha^•e rather different faunistic relationships, when their 

 eggs are spawned side by side in the Gulf, as is the case in summer 

 (p. 261), they are subject to similar conditions, and would necessarily 

 undergo similar migrations if any; and such a migration, around the 

 Gulf, if it actiudly takes place, would explain, not only the geographic 

 location of our records for the Silver Hake fry (Fig. 83) ; but also the 

 fact that in summer they are so much more abundant in the Gulf than 

 young Cod or Haddock, because the chief spawning of the latter takes 

 place in autumn, winter (Cod), and early spring (Haddock), so that 

 their fry would naturally have drifted out of the northern part of the 

 Gulf by late spring and summer, when most of our work has been done. 

 Silver Hake, on the other hand, spawn chiefly in summer in the Gulf. 

 It is, of course, obvious that if this be a true picture, it presupposes 

 an inmiigration of small fish back into the Gulf, to maintain the rich 

 population of gadoids, both large and small, which obtains there; 

 and it is of course possible that more or less regular supplies of Cod may 

 reach the Gulf from the north, via the Cabot Current; though this 

 can hardly be supposed for the Haddock. 



But our actual knowledge along this line being practically nil, 

 I can only point out some of the vistas which the demonstration of the 



