22 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
present studies, that a school of fish may remain for weeks or months in the same 
general locality. 
In order to learn something definite concerning the habits of the cod off southern 
New Jersey, fish were tagged there in March and April, 1928, and again in the winter 
of 1928-29. None of the former were recaptured locally, but records obtained from 
the latter (Table 13) are of decided interest. 
Table 13. — Cod tagged off Atlantic City and off Cape May, N. J., from December, 1928, to April, 1929, 
with a record of all recaptures reported up to October, 1929 1 
Date 
Tagging record 
Locality 
Number 
of cod 
Date 
Dec. 12, 1928 
Off Atlantic City 
12 
Dec. 15’ 1928 
do 
50 
Dec. 19, 1928 
do 
31 
Dec. 22’ 1928 
Off Cape May 
26 
Dec. 27 , 1928 
do 
35 
Dec. 29, 1928 
do ... 
55 
Dec. 3l! 1928 
do ... 
70 
Feb. 20,1929 
do .. 
33 
Jan. 23,1929 
Jan. 3, 1929 
do 
29 
Jan 22, 1929 _ . 
51 
/Jan. 27,1929 
\Aug. 1, 1929 
Feb 11, 1929 _ 
do 
49 
Feb. 13! 1929. . . 
do _ 
52 
Apr. 13,1929 
Mar. 21, 1929 
Feb. 16| 1929 
_ ...do. 
51 
Feb 18, 1929 . 
7 
Mar. 11, 1929 . 
do . 
26 
Mar. 13, 1929 
. __ do 
18 
Mar 18, 1929 
40 
Aug. 5, 1929 
Mar. 19, 1929 . 
.do .. . . 
9 
Mar 21, 1929 
22 
Mar 27! 1929 
do .. 
11 
Oct. 12,1929 
Apr 7, 1929 
do. ... 
13 
.do 
56 
Recapture record 
Locality 
2 miles off Wildwood, N. J. 
2 miles southeast of North Wildwood. 
Inside of Delaware Bay. 
South Channel, off Massachusetts. 
McCries Shoals, Cape May. 
5-fat.hom bank, Cape May. 
South Channel. 
Nantucket Shoals. 
> See p. 131 for additional records. 
The few recaptures made of the cod tagged off Cape May the winter of 1928-29 
prove beyond a doubt that a large part of the cod present there at that time remained 
in the same immediate locality without migrating. Thus we have a fish tagged 
December 31 and another on January 1 which were retaken in virtually the same 
locality 52 and 23 days later, respectively. Of the fish tagged Februarjf 13 and 16, 
one was retaken 33 days later about 10 miles away and another 59 days later on the 
same ground where it was tagged. Another fish, tagged January 22, about 10 miles 
off the coast, moved inshore directly afterwards, for five days later it was recaptured 
well inside Delaware Bay. 
Further proof that these few recapture records of tagged fish are fairly repre- 
sentative of the bodj r of cod as a whole off Cape May during the winter of 1928-29, 
is shown by an analysis of the length frequencies of various samples of cod. 
For example, the length-frequency distribution (fig. 6) obtained in part from the 
cod tagged off Cape May (Table 13) and in part from cod caught by fishermen in 
Delaware Bay, may be interpreted as follows; 
1, The length-frequency distribution for December and January (shown with 
long dashes in fig. 6) may be taken as representative of the stock of fish that was 
found from 2 to 10 miles off Cape May throughout those months. Although not 
included in the graph, the 93 cod tagged about 8 miles off Atlantic City were of about 
the same length distribution as these. 
2. A large increase in the proportion of small fish around 21 to 23 inches long 
and a decrease in the large fish around 26 to 28 inches long occurred at some time 
