Table 2.— Stomach contents of hardhead catfish, longspine porgy, and Atlantic cutlassfish collected from Texas coastal 

 waters between 4 June and 3 July 1981, expressed as percentages of total food dry weight by age and depth of capture. A 

 "+" indicates presence in the diet but <0.17c. Fish lengths are mm SL, except Atlantic cutlassfish which are mm TL. 

 Depth ranges are in meters. 



TABLE 3.— Spearman rank correlation coefficient matrices comparing 

 age and depth-specific diets within species of Texas coastal fishes 

 collected between 4 June and 3 July 1981. Significant correlations 

 indicated by * at 0.05 or ** at 0.01 levels. Depth ranges in meters. 



Species 



Age 



Depth 



7-17 



18-44 



7-17 



18-44 



Sand seatrout 



Silver seatrout 



Hardhead catfish 



Atlantic croaker 



— 0215 



0.687* 



186 



0.460 



831" 

 0484 



605 



0746 



0.232 



0689* 



0.346 

 0.569 



0847* 

 0516 

 940* 

 0371 

 0.732 

 555 



0.131 



0.697* 



0.545 



0.389 

 0.482 

 0.135 



favored prey in three of four categories, polychaetes 

 comprised more than half the diet only in age-0 

 Atlantic croaker in shallow waters. Age-I Atlantic 

 croaker in shallow waters preferred crabs (mainly 

 Albunea). Alpheid and other caridean shrimps 

 formed one-third of the age-0 Atlantic croaker diet in 

 18-44 m waters, while age-I individuals at these 

 depths consumed large amounts of tunicates. The 

 prey of hardhead catfish was mainly stomatopods, 

 crabs, and shrimps. The diets of age-I hardhead cat- 



fish in both inhabited depth ranges were correlated 

 with the age-0 diet in 18-44 m, where the primary 

 food was stomatopods. Age-0 hardhead catfish in 

 shallow waters did not consume stomatopods but 

 concentrated on crabs and shrimps. Crabs com- 

 prised at least 25% of the diets of all age/depth 

 categories except the age-I hardhead catfish from 18- 

 44 m depths, probably due to the small number of 

 stomachs (3) analyzed. Identifiable prey taxa were 

 mainly brown shrimp, Penaeus aztecus; rock shrimp, 



645 



