Cruise no. 126 of the Albatross III was planned and conducted to gather information about the distribution of fishes across the Continental Shelf from Nantucket Shoals to Cape Hatteras during the late winter period when water temperatures generally are at their minimum. The shelf here has a general hydrographic similarity from north to south, well described by Bigelow (1933), that makes it a particularly worthwhile area in which to study the relation of fish distribution to water temperature, depth, and other factors of the environment. Since the fish of this portion of the shelf support several different, relatively important food and industrial fisheries, as well as an intensive marine sport fishery. Cruise no. 126 served to provide data valuable to several research programs.