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5. Food. 
In the stomach of examined specimens I have found remains 
of fish (Macrurus), Greenland halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides), 
smaller specimens of its own species, but during the period of the 
Angmagssat (Mallotus villosus) above all remains of this latter, and 
of crustaceans (Pandalus). 
6. On a multitudinous rising to the sur face of dead and dying 
redfish in the winter. 
A peculiar phenomenon concerning the redfish is to be men- 
tioned here, viz. its casual rising to the surface in great numbers 
in the middle of winter. I have found an interesting statement of 
this phenomenon in a letter directed to the then Professor in Zoo- 
logy C hr. Liitken, and written in Sukkertoppen on February 20. 
1889 by Colonial Manager R. Muller, renowned for his accounts 
of the animal life in Greenland. He writes: 
“On the llth inst. two Greenlanders came home with their 
kayaks so heavily loaded with redfish (Sebastes norvegicus) as 
was possible, and told that 4 miles off the colony an enormous 
quantity of dead or dying redfish were rising to the surface, 
so that they could be taken with the hånds. I at once set out in 
a boat with 4 men, and in the course of 2 hours we gathered 
ca. 600 redfish. An area of the sea, 4000 feet long and ca. 
1000 feet broad, was strown all over with dead redfish, most 
of them closely packed, but some with intervals between. I did not 
see any other fish than redfish. Some Greenlanders soon turned 
up, and before evening I think that no less than 3000 fishes had 
been gathered. A Greenlander whom I met told me that he had 
seen them rising to the surface; they were coming upwards in 
spirals, almost like a corkscrew, and were dead when they reached 
the surface. Some days later on ca. 200 redfish were also found 
to have risen to the surface in quite another place. 
I have asked the Greenlanders if they know what may be the 
reason of this great mortality among the redfish and among them 
alone, whether it may be due to some illness or perhaps to 
poisonous gases from the bottom of the sea, and got the answer 
that is was due to the frost penetrating into the water and freezing 
the eyes of the redfish. At certain times the water is namely 
