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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



bases of the pectorals and is higher than the second 

 dorsal, but only about half as long. The second 

 dorsal has 20 to 25 rays. The anal fin is similar to 

 the second dorsal in form and stands below it, but 

 is a little shorter (20 to 22 rays). The ventral fins 

 (each with 3 rays as is the rule among sculpins) 

 reach about as far back as the rear end of the first 

 dorsal, while the pectorals (17 rays) are of the fan- 

 like shape usual among sculpins. The males have 

 a very large and noticeable anal papilla. 



Color. — Olive above; white, yellowish or orange 

 below. There are four dusky blotches above the 

 lateral line on each side, one on the caudal pe- 

 duncle, one passing through the first dorsal fin, 

 and two passing through the second dorsal fin. 

 The fins are variously marked with yellowish and 

 with gray-black. The first dorsal of the male has a 

 dusky blotch between the first and second spines 

 and another between the seventh and tenth spines; 

 the second dorsal is marked with three horizontal 

 olivaceous bars. Females lack the blotches on the 

 first dorsal fin; and their second dorsal is marked 

 with narrow lines of dots. 



Size.- — This is a small species, probably growing 

 to about 8 inches, the maximum that is recorded 

 for its European representative. 65 The largest 

 yet recorded for the Gulf of Maine was 6 inches 

 long. 



Habits. — Little is known of its habits beyond 

 the bare fact that it is a bottom fish, like other 

 sculpins. Any that breed in the Gulf of Maine 

 probably spawn in midsummer, Cox 68 having re- 

 ported a ripe female at Cape Breton in July. Its 

 eggs were pinkish, 2 mm. in diameter, with many oil 

 globules. Presumably the eggs sink like those of 

 other sculpins. The European mailed sculpin is 

 known to eat worms and various crustaceans, and 

 the diet of the American form is the same, 

 probably. 



General range. — Sculpins of this general type are 

 circumpolar, ranging south to Cape Cod along 

 the American coast and to the Baltic on the 

 European side of the Atlantic, in rather deep water. 

 But they show a tendency to split up into local 

 races, the constancy of which is yet to be tested by 

 a study of large series. Newfoundland specimens, 

 for example, differ so much from typical Triglops 

 ommatistius in the arrangement and number of 



folds of skin along the sides that Gilbert 67 has 

 dignified them with a separate name (as the 

 subspecies terranovae of species ommatistius); and 

 both the eastern American forms are distinguished 

 from the east Greenland and European mailed 

 sculpins by the presence of the eyespot on the first 

 dorsal fin of the male (which the European form 

 lacks) and by slightly fewer fin rays. We do not 

 feel convinced, however, that all these forms, 

 together with the Bering Sea form (Triglops beanii 

 Gilbert, 1895), will not finally prove to be local 

 varieties of a single wide-ranging species. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine.- — Judging from 

 the scarcity of records this cold water fish is 

 uncommon in the Gulf of Maine. Specimens have 

 been recorded from the neighborhood of St. 

 Andrews in the Bay of Fundy, in 15 fathoms 

 (reported by Huntsman) ; a few from Massa- 

 chusetts Bay and from off Race Point, Cape Cod 

 (now or formerly in the collection of the Boston 

 Society of Natural History) ; 1 1 others now in the 

 United States National Museum were from 

 Gloucester, Cape Cod, and Georges Bank; we 

 have trawled them near Mount Desert; in Massa- 

 chusetts Bay; off Cape Ann; off Cape Cod; and 

 around the northern slope of Georges Bank, 

 in depths of 20 to 140 fathoms in various months 

 from spring to autumn; and two were trawled 

 on the southeast slope of Georges 68 by the 

 Albatross III, July 17, 1948, in 45 fathoms. Our 

 most southerly record for it was about 10 miles 

 east of Chatham, Mass. 



The fact that Gilbert found differences be- 

 tween the Gulf of Maine and Newfoundland 

 specimens, with others from Chebucto Head 

 (Nova Scotia) and from Georges Bank inter- 

 mediate between them, suggests that the mailed 

 sculpin is a permanent resident of the inner parts 

 of the Gulf, rather than that it appears there 

 only as a wanderer, past Cape Sable, from the 

 east and north. 



Eastward and northward from our Gulf, this 

 sculpin is described as being rather common to 

 numerous on the outer Nova Scotian fishing 

 grounds, and as one of the characteristic mem- 

 bers of the fish fauna of the icy cold water on the 

 Banks and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 89 



u Collett, Norske Nordhaus-Expedition, 1S7I5-78, Zool., Fiske, 1880, p. 38. 

 « Contrib. Canad. Biol. (1918-1920) 1921, p. 111. 



•' Proc. V. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 44, 1913, p. 467. 



«' Latitute 40°4S' N., longitute 66°31' W. (Arnold, Copeia 1949, p. 299). 



" See Huntsman, Trans. Royal Soc. Canada, Ser. 3, vol. 12, Sect. 4, 1918, 

 pp. 61-67, for a very interesting account of the fishes that are characteristic 

 of the different water layers in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



