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Part III. — Twenty -second Annual Report 



Of those examined on the 30th of March towards the end of the 

 spawning time, two females were still spawning, their sizes being 43 and 

 53cm. ; the number spent was 36, the smallest that was certainly 

 determined to have spawned being 45cm. The number immature was 

 51, the largest being 46* 5cm., but it is possible it had spawned early in 

 the season. Among the males, of which 65 were examined, 11 were 

 still spawning, the smallest measuring 38cm., or nearly 15 inches. Six 

 were taken to be spent, the smallest being 37cm. and the largest of those 

 immature was 38cm. Among the spent females it was, as a rule, easy 

 to determine their condition from the fact that a small quantity of ripe 

 eggs was still contained within the ovaries, sometimes amounting to a 

 few teaspoonfuls. 



Some observations were also made upon the cod, and although they 

 were not very extensive, so little has been exactly determined for this 

 fish that they may be given here. At the end of March, when I was on 

 board a trawler, we hit upon a shoal of spawning cod in the Moray 

 Firth, some hundreds being caught in each haul of the net, and very 

 few other round fish were taken at the same time. They were actively 

 engaged in spawning, the ripe eggs and the spermatic fluid flowing from 

 them, and some were spent. I was struck by the fact that among these 

 fish there were none of a small size, and the great majority were cod of 

 the largest dimensions usually landed, Among the smallest measured 

 were the following: — Females 33, 35, and 35J inches ; males 29J (quite 

 ripe), 33J, 30, 34J, 35 inches. Among the few codlings taken I found 

 one of 70*5cm. (27^ inches) quite immature ; one at 56'7cm. (22J 

 inches) had an extremely small ovary. At Aberdeen on 18th April I 

 found one measuring 72*6mm. (28| inches) immature, and on the 11th 

 February of a number of large codling examined after they had been 

 landed I found males measuring 595mm. and 640mm. quite immature ; 

 in the latter the testes weighed only 5*3 grammes. The largest female 

 was 60 '7cm., or about 24 inches, and it was immature, the largest eggs 

 in the ovary measuring # 18mm in diameter, and showing faint deposition 

 of yolk at the periphery. 



From these facts I concluded that the size of the cod when maturity is 

 first attained was probably considerably higher than is generally supposed, 

 but in the Moray Firth on the very next day, viz. 1st April, a cod was 

 taken in 32 fathoms off Burghead with large and perfectly mature ovaries. 

 It was 65cm. (25f inches) in length and weighed 71bs. 2|oz., the roe 

 weighing 432 grammes (15|oz.). This fish had just begun to spawn, and 

 it was clearly of quite a different class from the great spawning shoal 

 above alluded to, in which the smallest spawning female measured 

 84-0cm. 



It may be added that on the 12th November codling taken in the 

 Moray Firth, and measuring from 535 to 610mm., had small ovaries, 

 weighing from 3*1 to 6*83 grammes, the diameter of the largest eggs 

 being *147 and *2mm ; while cod of 92*7 and 102*9cm. had the ovaries 

 weighing 111*5 and 161.3 grammes respectively, the diameter of the 

 largest eggs being -22mm. On the other hand, a cod of 74 "7cm., taken 

 in Aberdeen Bay on 31st October, with ovaries weighing 56*5 grammes, 

 had eggs up to *50mm. 



The average size fixed by Holt for the cod on first attaining maturity, 

 viz. 25 inches, would therefore appear to be by no means too high ; many 

 cod, as he points out, undoubtedly reach a considerably larger size before 

 spawning. The smallest ripe female obtained by him measured 26| 

 inches ; it was thus somewhat larger than the small one above recorded 

 from the Moray Firth, He, however, obtained one which was three 



