Eggs from 75 running-ripe (Table 1) females were collected in
1998 (Table 2). About 1000 hydrated eggs from each female
were stripped at sea and put into vials containing 5% bufferedformalin in full-strength seawater. FL and SL, TW and SW of
females were recorded. Eggs in formalin were kept for a few
days. Afterwards, three subsamples of 100 eggs each were
rinsed with distilled water and placed inside a small preweighed aluminium foil capand weighed to the nearest
0.01 mg. The eggs and the caps were placed in an oven for
24 h at 50C. The dried eggs inside the caps were left in a
desiccator until a constant weight was achieved. These were
then weighed to the nearest 0.01 mg and the mean egg dry
weight was determined. The relationships between egg dry
weight, SL, SW of fish and days elapsed since beginning of the
spawning season were investigated by linear regression analysis. The effect of preservative on the egg dry weight was