446 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Pomatontus saltatrix GOODE & BEAN, Bull. Essex Inst. XI, 20, 1879; JORDAN 

 & GILBERT, Bull. 16, U. S. Nat. Mus. 914, 1883; BEAN, Bull. U. S. F. C. 

 VII, 145, 1888; 19th Rep. Comin. Fish. N. Y. 269, pi. XX, fig. 24, 

 1890; Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. IX, 363, 1897; 52d Ann. Kept. N. Y. 

 State Mus. 104, 1900; SMITH, Bull. U. S. F. C. XVII, 98, 1898; MEARNS, 

 Bull. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist. X, 319, 1898; JORDAN & EVERMANN, Bull. 

 47, U. S. Nat. Mus. 946, 1896, pi. CXLVIII, fig. 400, 1900; EUGENE 

 SMITH. Proc. Linn. Soc. N. Y. 1897, 32, 1898. 



Body robust, moderately compressed; belly compressed to a 

 bluntish edge. The depth is contained four times in the length 

 of the body. Head deep; top of head and a ridge on each side 

 above the cheeks naked; cheeks much longer than opercles. 

 The leuo-th of the head is contained three and one third times 



o 



in the length of the body. Pectorals placed rather low, their 

 length a little more than half that of the head. D. VIII-1, 25; 

 A. II-I, 26; Lat. 1. 95. Bluish or greenish, silvery below, a 

 black blotch at the base of the pectoral. 



Some of the many names applied to this widely distributed 

 fish are the following: mackerel (New Jersey), horse mackerel 

 (New York and Rhode Island), snapping mackerel (New Eng- 

 land and New Jersey), skip mackerel (New York), snapper and 

 blue snapper (New England), green fish (Maryland, Virginia and 

 North Carolina), salt-water jack (southern states), tailor (Chesa- 

 peake bay), whitefish (Hudson river). Bluefish is the name most 

 extensively used on the coast and in the Gulf of Mexico. 



The bluefish ranges on our coast from Maine to the Gulf of 

 Mexico, and is believed to frequent warm seas of both conti- 

 nents. It has ranged farther to the northward this year than 

 for many years before. We have heard of its capture in the 

 vicinity of Mount Desert Me. On our coast and elsewhere its 

 movements are erratic, and its abundance fluctuates greatly 

 within certain periods; it disappears sometimes altogether for 

 a term of years. The young, under about 1 inch in length, 

 seem to be unknown. The spawning habits and localities have 

 not been recorded. The smallest known examples were ob- 

 tained at the surface offshore by the U. S. Fish Commission. 

 The writer has seined individuals a little more than an inch 

 long at Ocean City N. J. the last of August. The young ascend 

 rivers into fresh water. 



