254 THE COD FAMILY. 



on January 20th off Plymouth — which he provisionally iden- 

 tified with the bib, giving the diameter as I'lo mm. In this 

 case the larval fish resembled a whiting. He also had an 

 opportunity of measuring eggs from a ripe bib in a tank at 

 Plymouth in March, and found the diameter 1"05 to 1"15 mm.\ 

 Dr Sauvage found ripe forms at the same period (February) at 

 Boulogne^ The milt of the male resembles that of the haddock 

 and its allies. It is largely developed at the end of December. 

 The Scandinavian authors simply state that the spawning- 

 season occurs in spring. 



Mr Cunningham procured specimens of 2'5 inches on the 

 I7th June, others 4'6 inches on September .5th ; while on 

 October 2nd, they ranged between 4 and -5 inches, and he 

 assigns an age of 3, 6 and 7 months respectively to these 

 examples. On the other hand one of 3| inches in January was 

 probably seven months old, and another 4'9 inches on June 

 17th he thinks is a year and two months old. Specimens of 

 the same age he says are taken by the deep-sea trawlers in 

 depths up to 30 fathoms. In October the young bib in the 

 Thames range from 4<^ to 5| inches, at which size they are 

 destroyed in considerable numbers by the shrimp-trawlers. 



The Poor-Cod. (Gadus mimitus, L.) 



This, besides being the smallest, is also one of the most 

 widely distributed of the gadoid fishes. Its development and 

 life-history seem to resemble those of the whiting more than 

 any other of the family. 



The egg (Plate III, fig. 6) which was first described and 

 figured by Raffaele, is small, seldom exceeding '039 inch in 

 diameter, and there is no oil-globule. In other respects it 

 closely resembles the egg of other gadoids. 



The spawning-period is late and may extend to June, 

 whereas Raffaele found the eggs in early spring at Naples. 

 In the Scandinavian Fishes it is said to spawn in the first 

 days of spring, as in February and March the ovaries are full. 



' Jmrn. Mar. Biol. Assoc. 1889-90, p. 375. 

 ^ Ann. de stat. Aquiq. 1893, p. 93. 



