DISCUSSION OF SPECIES AND THEIK DISTRIBUTION. 

 table of measurements— continued. 



287 



22,889. 



so miles S.by E.of 

 Noman's Land. 



Current number of specimen 



Locality < 



Caudal*: 



Length "f middle rays 



Length of external raya <NU|>rnnr. 



J ( interior .. 



Pectoral: 



Distance from snout 



*-*"• {3f&?!: 



Ventral : 



Distance from snout 



LfllL.'! ll 



Branohiostegals 



Dorsal 



Anal 



Caudal 



Pectoral 



Ventral 



Number of scales in lateral line 



Number of transverse rows above lateral line 



Number of transverse rows below lateral line 



This fish was first observed in 1879, when a Cape Aim schooner, the Wm. V. Hutchitujs, 

 while setting trawl lines for cod on Nantucket shoals, took several hundred specimens. 

 The capture of so large a fish so entirely unlike anything known in American waters excited 

 much interest, and it was at first thought that it might become of economic importance. 

 The genus and species were immediately described, and a popular name was proposed, 

 taken from the fourth syllable of the name of the genus. 



In July of the same year, the schooner Clara F. Friend, while fishing for cod iu the same 

 region, obtained nine of them at a station 50 miles south by east of Noman's Laud, in N. 

 hit. 40° 10', W. Ion. 70° 55', at a depth of 75 fathoms, on very hard clay bottom. In Sep- 

 tember the Fish Commission steamer Fish Haiok went to the same region to search for 



them. 



The first trip of the Fish Hawk to deep water from Newport was on September 4, and 

 the nets were hauled as nearly as possible on the same grounds where Lopholatilus had 

 previously been taken. The second trip, ten days later, was to a region about 40 miles 

 farther west, and on this occasion six or more large individuals of this species were brought 

 up on a hand line ( ladder line) set from an open boat sent out from the steamer. None 

 were at any time taken in the trawl nets, though there is every reason to believe from the 

 success of the fishing vessels previously, and from the number taken on the hand line by 

 the men in the small boat, that they were exceedingly abundant in this locality, and proba- 

 bly for hundreds of miles in either direction, or at any rate to the south. 



In 18S0 and 18S1 the Fish Hawk took tile fish on several occasions at depths of from 

 70 to 134 fathoms. The indications of the apparent abundance of a new and edible fish of 

 large size made Prof. Baird desirous of obtaining fuller knowledge of its habits and habi- 

 tat, iu the hope that it might readily be taken in large numbers and prove an important 

 addition to the list of food-fishes. Unfortunately the Fish Commission had not yet built 

 the schooner Grampus, so, having no vessel especially adapted for fishery research and pre- 

 pared to encounter all weather, it was necessary to charter a fishing smack for the work. 

 Unfortunately, too, bad or threatening weather seemed to have been chartered with the 

 smack, and only a brief and unsatisfactory trial could be made on the tile fish ground, so 

 that research was of necessity postponed until 1882. In the months of March and April, 

 lssi". vessels arriving at Philadelphia, New York, and Boston reported having passed large 

 numbers of dead or dying tish scattered over an area of many miles, and from descriptions 

 and the occasional specimens brought in, it was evident that the great majority of these 

 were tile fish. Naturally these fish were not evenly distributed over all the area in 

 which they were seen, some observers reporting them as scattering, and others as at times 

 so numerous that there would be as many as fifty on the space of a rod square. As one 



