152 
SCANDINAVIAN FISHES. 
(Rock-Perch). The smaller form, however, as we have 
remarked above, is the more common there, as well as 
off’ the south of Norway, as far north as Trondhjem 
Fjord. It is generally found at the comparatively small 
depth of from 20 to 60 fathoms, but sometimes at as 
great a depth as 150 fathoms' 1 . South of Bohuslan the 
smaller form has never been met with, but the larger 
form has wandered on several occasions as far as 
the Sound h An active fishery, which has this larger 
form as its object, is carried on along the whole coast 
of Norway, but especially in the north, where the Nor- 
way Haddock is found in deep water, though most 
often at a depth of from 60 to 100 fathoms. It has 
also been met with in the White Seat, off Nova Zembla, 
Spitzbergen, Iceland and Greenland, where the smaller 
form apparently does not exist, and also off Newfound- 
land and along the North American coast as far south 
as Cape Cod, whence the Royal Museum has received 
specimens which by certain characters range themselves 
between the two forms. The larger form has also been 
taken on a few occasions off the coasts of Scotland and 
Ireland. In the North Sea the species scarcely seems 
to be stationary. 
The Norway Haddock seems generally to keep to 
a rocky bottom, where it lives on crustaceans, mollusks, 
and small fishes. It is of gregarious habits, for where 
the fisherman has one bite, it is generally not long be- 
fore another follows; and among the Lofoden Islands, 
according to Collett, it is sometimes taken in hund- 
reds in the nets set for Coalfish. According to Ek- 
STROM it is caught, though seldom, on the coast of 
Bohuslan from April to July inclusive, and somewhat 
oftener at certain spots from October to December. 
The male is generally rarer than the female. The young 
ones leave the ovaries of the parent-fish during the 
spring-months, from April to May, or sometimes early 
in summer, when they are from 3 to 5 mm. in length. 
From the fact of his having received on several oc- 
casions during the month of May a pair of Norway 
Haddocks, male and female, that had been caught to- 
gether, Ekstrom came to the conclusion that this fish 
is perhaps monogamous. At the end of May he ob- 
tained females with the eggs so advanced in develop- 
ment that not only the two black spots which mark 
the eyes, but also the whole embryo was visible within 
them. According to Kroyer the fry are so developed 
in July that they are able to leave the mother. At 
this period they are tiny, lively creatures which make 
their way up to the higher regions of the sea and swim 
about near the surface. During the Norwegian Arctic 
expeditions of 1877 and 1878, according to Collett, 
young specimens from 9 to 19 mm. in length were 
taken in the month of July, together with several pe- 
lagic crustaceans and young mollusks, in a surface-net, 
in the Arctic Ocean off Bear Island and Spitzbergen. 
Apparently, however, they soon return to the bottom 
of the sea, for in 1878, in the months of July and 
August, during the same expedition, specimens from 
62 to 143 mm. in length were taken in Tana Fjord 
and the same part of the Arctic Ocean, at the bottom, 
where the water was from 120 to 150 fathoms deep. 
In spite of its being viviparous, a circumstance 
which in other fishes admits of the production of only 
a comparatively small number of fry, the Norway Had- 
dock is still fairly prolific. Collett estimated the 
number of the eggs in a female specimen of the larger 
form, 550 mm. in length, to be about 148,000, and in 
one of the smaller form, 300 mm. in length, 18,000. 
As Ryder'', however, estimates the number of embryos 
in each ovary to be only about 1,000, it seems highly 
probable that only a small portion of the eggs come 
to maturity at the same time. The latter writer also 
believes he has found on the dorsal part of the inside of 
the ovary an abundant covering of flat, fleshy and highly 
vascular processes which to some extent corresponds to 
the maternal placenta of the higher vertebrates. 
The Norway Haddock (Sw. Kungsji.sk = Kingfish 
or Bodfisk = Redfish), which in Norway is more gene- 
rally called Ur, is a fish of exquisite flavour, a veritable 
ocean delicacy. Its flesh is firm and white, and tastes 
very like that of the common Perch. In the island- 
belt of Bohuslan it is generally taken on the long-line. 
It is too scarce to be of any great commercial value, 
and is therefore most often eaten fresh by the fisher- 
men themselves. 
(Ekstrom, Smitt.) 
a Collett, N. Mag. Nature., ]. c. The Royal Museum has also received from a fisherman of Karingo, Mattson by name, a male 
specimen of the smaller form, which was taken at a depth of “from 75 to 150 fathoms, N. W. of Bergen”. 
6 Nilsson (1. c.) gives several instances. 
c Lieutenant H. Sandeberg brought home a specimen from Archangel to the Royal Museum. 
d Bull. U. S. Fish. Comm., vol. VI (1866), p. 92. 
