SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 119 



15th and twenty-five miles W.N.W. from Piel Gas Buoy on 

 the same date contained an average of six hundred cod eggs 

 per sample. 



Gadus aeglefinus, Linn. — Haddock. 



During the two years previous to 1913 no haddock eggs 

 were observed in any of the plankton samples. Only two 

 records were obtained in 1913, and from the number of eggs 

 present it is probable that spawning fish were very scarce. 

 Two haddock eggs were found in plankton collected five miles 

 N.W. by W. from Peel, Isle of Man, on May 7th. A few adult 

 fish were caught in the trawl net which was being worked at 

 the same time. A sample of plankton from Carnarvon Bay on 

 May 15th contained eleven haddock eggs. 



Gadus merlangus, Linn. — Whiting. 



The eggs of the whiting made their appearance in the 

 plankton for the first time in 1913, in a collection taken five 

 miles E. of Point Lynus on February 6th. They were present 

 in variable numbers all over the Irish Sea, from Bahama 

 Bank to off Point Lynus, between the date mentioned and 

 May 19th. The eggs extended shorewards to the Selker Light 

 Vessel off the Cumberland coast to Nelson Buoy at the entrance 

 to the Ribble. The maximum spawning period was probably 

 early in April and slightly later than the cod. A tow-netting 

 taken twenty-five miles W.N.W. from Piel Gas Buoy on April 

 15th contained two thousand four hundred eggs of whiting. 



Gadus virens, Linn. — Green Cod, Coal-Fish. 



Eggs identified as those of the green cod or coal-fish were 

 observed in five tow-nettings taken between the " Hole " and 

 Bahama Bank, and Bahama Bank and Selker Light Vessel, 

 on February 18th. They were present again on March 3rd, 

 fifteen miles W.N.W. from Piel Gas Buoy. These are the 

 only records which there was any certainty about. 



