FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 72. NO. 2 



northern limit of U. chuss as the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence, apparently on the basis of reports of 

 U. chuss (under the name of Phycis americanus 

 (Block and Schneider)) from the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence by H. R. Storer ( 1850), Fortin (1863), Knight 

 (1866), and Gilpin ( 1867). These authors, however, 

 had followed the nomenclatural usage of D. H. 

 Storer (1839, 1846, 1858) whose descriptions of 

 Phycis americanus from Massachusetts obviously 

 referred to U. tenuis because of the large size of 

 his specimens (Musick, 1973). Similarly all other 

 reports off/, chuss from the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 are based on nomenclatural errors or were made 

 by workers (Cox, 1905, 1921; Cornish, 1907, 

 1912; Craigie, 1916, 1927; Vladykov and Trem- 

 blay, 1935; Vladykov and McKenzie, 1935; Mc- 

 Kenzie, 1959; and Vladykov and McAllister, 1961) 

 who by their own admission or by the species 

 descriptions they published had shown their in- 

 ability to distinguish between U. chuss and U. 

 tenuis (Musick, 1969). 



Urophycis chuss is absent from or very rare in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Several thousand 

 specimens of Urophycis examined at Souris, 

 Prince Edward Island, in August 1966 were all 

 U. tenuis (Musick, 1973). Juvenile and post- 

 larval Urophycis captured in the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence by Fisheries Research Board of Canada 

 personnel from St. Andrews, New Brunswick, 

 and sent to me for identification were all U. 

 tenuis. Several hundred Urophycis examined on a 

 cruise of the RV Prince in the Northumberland 

 Straits and Magdalen shallows in September 1972 

 were all U. tenuis (K. Able, pers. comm.). 



The Newfoundland Fishery Research Commis- 

 sion captured one U. chuss (a pelagic juvenile) 

 and many U. tenuis (benthic adults) on the 

 Scotian shelf between Sable Island and Ban- 

 quereau Banks (Newfoundland Fisheries Re- 

 search Commission, 1932). Similarly, trawl col- 

 lections made from RV Albatross IV on the 

 Scotian shelf in March 1969 and 1970 and Novem- 

 ber 1969 (J. McEachran, pers. comm.) contained 

 few U. chuss and many U. tenuis. Trawl col- 

 lections made from RV Cameron between Canso, 

 Nova Scotia, and Banquereau Bank in August 

 1970 and 1971 contained very few U. chuss but 

 many U. tenuis (C. Wenner and J. McEachran, 

 pers. comms.). To my knowledge the most north- 

 eastern locality from which voucher specimens 

 of U. chuss are available is lat. 43°39'N, long. 

 59°26.5'W (Virginia Institute of Marine Science 

 lot No. 01957) collected by otter trawl from RV 



Cameron, 14 July 1971, at a depth of 197 m. 

 Both U. chuss and U. tenuis have been reported 

 frequently from the Gulf of Maine and the Mid- 

 Atlantic Bight as far south as Cape Hatteras, 

 N.C. (Musick, 1969). 



Svetovidov (1955) classified Phycis borealis 

 Saemundson 1913, an Icelandic form, as a junior 

 synonym off/, tenuis. Icelandic specimens exam- 

 ined during my study confirm Svetovidov's taxo- 

 nomic judgment and document the range exten- 

 sion of the species to Iceland. Similarly Bullis 

 and Thompson (1965) reported U. tenuis from the 

 continental slope of the east coast of Florida. I 

 examined these specimens and confirm their 

 identification as U. tenuis. 



Fraser-Brunner (1925) reported two small speci- 

 mens of U. chuss from the Irish Atlantic slope 

 but was not certain of their identity: "Two small 

 specimens [25 and 55 mm standard length] 

 apparently referable to this species (U. chuss) 

 were taken in the tow net near the surface . . . ." 

 Urophycis chuss of this size were considered to be 

 unidentifiable by American workers such as 

 Bigelow and Welsh (1925) who had many oppor- 

 tunities to examine small specimens. It is probable 

 that Fraser-Brunner's postlarvae were a species 

 of Phycis, not Urophycis. 



The known ranges of the two species can now 

 be summarized: U. chuss occurs on the continental 

 shelf from southern Nova Scotia to North Carolina 

 and may stray to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 Urophycis tenuis occurs on the continental shelf 

 and slope from Iceland, Labrador, and the Grand 

 Banks of Newfoundland to the coast of North 

 Carolina, straying as far south as Florida in deep 

 water. 



Sampling Procedures 



Data for a study of the seasonal distribution 

 patterns off/, chuss and U. tenuis were collected 

 during a groundfish survey conducted by the 

 National Marine Fisheries Service at Woods 

 Hole, Mass. The survey consisted of nine seasonal 

 cruises by RV Albatross IV from the mouth of 

 the Bay of Fundy to Hudson Canyon. Approxi- 

 mately 1,800 fishing stations were occupied, and 

 cruises were conducted during the summer and 

 fall in 1963, 1964, and 1965 and during the 

 winter in 1964, 1965, and 1966. 



The survey area was divided into 42 sampling 

 strata according to depth (Figure 1), and stations 

 were located randomly within strata. A No. 36 



482 



