HAKE. 
519 
1837, in which year the Hake had not finished spawn- 
ing before August. According to the unvarying asser- 
tion of the fishermen of Bohuslan there is only one 
single bank in the whole of the Cattegat where the 
Hake assembles in numbers to spawn. This spot is 
known as Kummelbanken or Kummelgrund (Hake Bank 
or Hake Shoal), and lies W.S.W. of Gothenburg, in the 
middle of the Cattegat, near the Sor Is. It is rather 
small, consists of sand and shingle, and lies in 16 — 22 
fathoms of water. On this bank Hakes collect in large 
shoals to spawn, from the middle of July to the middle 
of August. After this period they disperse again. Ac- 
cording to some of the fishermen they reappear at the 
same spot in spring, when they sometimes come near 
the land. From this we might perhaps conclude that 
it sometimes spawns as early here as in the south. 
According to Schagerstrom the Hake is rare in 
the Sound, but is known to the fishermen by the name 
of Lull. The Royal Museum has received from Trybom 
a female, about 5 dm. long and with only slightly 
developed ovaries, which was taken off Raa, near Hel- 
singborg, in the latter half of October, 1882. Mobius 
and Heincke give two instances, in November, 1872 
and December, 1873, of the occurrence of the Hake in 
Kiel Bay. In the Great Belt, according to Hansen, it 
has been taken off Corsoer. It seems never to have 
penetrated farther into the Baltic. The popular name 
of the Hake in Bohuslan and at Kullen, hummel , seems 
to be a corruption of the Norwegian kulmund (Goal- 
mouth), from the black colour of the mouth. Lysing 
is the ordinary name of the species in Norway, where, 
according to Collett, it is not rare, but occurs only 
sparingly up to Trondhjem Fjord. North of this lo- 
cality only solitary specimens have been met with, as 
for instance in March, 1883, when a specimen 1 3 1 / 2 dm. 
long was caught off Lodingen in the Lofoden Islands. 
The Hake occurs throughout the North Sea. It 
is extremely plentiful at a few spots on the coast of 
Brittany and the south-west coast of England and all 
round Ireland, but is said to be rare to the north-west 
of Scotland. Off the Faroe Islands it is not known, 
and the Lysi of Iceland is undoubtedly a different 
species, unless, as seems more probable, Faber’s de- 
scription of it is due to a confusion between two spe- 
cies. On the coast of the Spanish Peninsula the Hake 
is found at several spots, and in the Mediterranean, 
where it is caught in large quantities, it takes the place 
of the Cod, which does not occur there. 
Except during the days occupied by the spawning 
the Hake is extremely voracious and, therefore, easilv 
taken on the hook. It lives chiefly on fish, Herrings, 
Mackerel etc., and is said to destroy more than it can 
devour. It eagerly follows the Herring and Pilchard 
shoals. It drags the Pilchards out of the net, though 
it often entangles itself in the meshes, and thus pays 
the penalty of its voracity. During the seine-fishery 
for Herrings Hakes have been found in the seine that 
have glutted themselves quite helpless on the catch. 
It is also stated that the Hake, when drawn out of the 
water, evacuates the contents of its stomach. A spe- 
cimen opened by Sundevall, however, contained three 
young Herrings, and a Hake about 6 1 / 2 dm. long which 
was forwarded to the Royal Museum from Stromstad 
by Baron Cederstrom, had two well-preserved Sprats 
in its stomach. It is probably the voracity of the Hake 
that has given rise to the incredible tale told by Strom, 
on the authority of the Norwegian fishermen, that three 
fish were once caught on the same hook, the hook 
having pierced through the belly of the first, and hav- 
ing been at once swallowed by the second and in its 
turn by the third. 
This fish is apparently periodic. In the Cattegat, 
according to Hollberg, it was extremely plentiful 
during the Herring-fishery for some years about 1780, 
more Hakes being taken than could be made use of. 
Then it became rare, but was again caught in fairlv 
large quantities from 1801 to 1803, when several hun- 
dred barrels were salted. After this period, when the 
Herring disappeared, it again became so rare that it 
was not until 1821, after several years’ enquiry, that 
Hollberg succeeded in obtaining a specimen from the 
Cattegat for purposes of description. About 1830 it 
was again abundant in Bohuslan, but about 1840 the 
numbers again decreased. At the present time, now 
that the Herring is plentiful, the Hake is not rare, at 
least on the north coast of Bohuslan, according to 
Cederstrom. This fluctuation of the supply has much 
that reminds us of the periodicity of the Herring, and 
may probably be explained in the same way. Apart 
from the fact that the roving expeditions of a fish-of- 
prey are determined by the abundance of its food, 
they are also undertaken for purposes of reproduction. 
In the Cattegat the Hake has but few spawning- places, 
perhaps, as hinted above, only one; and, like main- 
other species, probably keeps persistently to its accus- 
tomed haunt. But when it is disturbed while spawning, 
