84
THE SEAS
-.
in which case they swim over the bottom truly on their
stomachs;
,
The. young stages of many sh are totally unlike the
adults.
The Angler Fish, for instance, so shapeless and
cumbersor‘ne when grown up, is a most beautiful object -
.
soon
after hatehing (Plate 37).
Its ns are drawn out
into laments of_fairy—like delicacy.
Like other young sh,
_‘ ;_
the Angler spends its early days drifting in the water layers
above the bottom, and the king—drawn—out laments of “the
ns help to keep it suspended in the water.
:_
MIGRATIONS
'
is obvious that, if, for several weeks in the early
stages of their lives, most shes are going to drift freelÿ
"
i
about at the mercy of tide and current, they will be carried
.
far from where their parents shed the eggs.
The greatest _‘ , __Î
importance therefore attaches ’ to the position of the
spawning ground, from which after a denite
young'shes must have been carried to suitable grounds for
and growing.
For this reason many
adult shes_
:_
undergo spawning migrations, that is,“ they move off all
:
together to a chosen locality to shed their eggs.
The
Ïor instance, in the southern North Sea move further south
_
,
(Fig; 61, p. 323), so that their eggs and young are dri_fted by
[
the prevalent currents on to the so—c‘àlled ‘ ‘ nurseries ” in the… f
'shallow, Sandy bottomed regions along the coasts 0î
Holland. The herring, t00, move in from deeper water to
Ï
deposit their eggs on the bottom in certain regions, and it is '
"- ’
then that
the shefmen set to work to catch them in the
:
drift nets.
'
‘
‘
-
*
But most surPsing=of all sÊawning migrations is that Of :
'
the
common
For years m'en in all Countries -
of ÈE£ur0pe‘ have wondered how' it is that the eelsin our
and yet nobody had
'ï
‘