FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



531 



seen in Boston Harbor, and on August 18, 1918, 

 one 4% feet long was killed in a narrow creek at 

 Quincy, Mass. The Grampus sighted sunfish near 

 the Isles of Shoals in 1896 (Dr. Kendall's field 

 notes), in 1912, and in 1914, as well as one in the 

 eastern basin of the Gulf in 1912. Seaside dwellers 

 reported one or two near Cape Porpoise in 1921; 

 one of 7 feet was caught off Boothbay, Maine, in 

 August 1927; and one 5 feet 3 inches long in the 

 northern side of Massachusetts Bay, off Bakers 

 Island, Beverly, in 1940, an especially interesting 

 case, for the fish in question was taken on a hand 

 line in 20 fathoms of water. 25 And in 1950 several 

 blundered into one of the traps at Barnstable on 

 Cape Cod Bay. 



An occasional sunfish is, in short, to be expected 

 anywhere in the western side of the Gulf and along 

 the coast of Maine. The only record, however, for 

 a sunfish in the Bay of Fundy is from near its 

 mouth at St. John Harbor. 26 Nor do we find any 

 report of them along the Nova Scotian side of the 

 open Gulf of Maine. 



In most summers it is something of an event to 

 see a sunfish anywhere in the inner part of the 

 Gulf. During July and August of 1912, for exam- 

 ple, we sighted only one from the Grampus, none 

 at all in August 1913, and only one in the Gulf 

 and another near La Have Bank during the mid 

 and late summer of 1914. They vary, however, 

 in numbers from year to year; 1928, for example, 

 was a year of abundance all along the coast, while 

 in 1950, a single trap at Barnstable on Cape Cod 

 Bay took 26 sunfish, an astonishing number. 

 Report also has it (we cannot verify this first- 

 hand) that sunfish are more plentiful over and 

 along the southern edge of Georges Bank than 

 they are within our Gulf, as indeed might be 

 expected from their oceanic origin. 



In the inner parts of our Gulf sunfish are oftenest 

 sighted in mid or late summer, or early in autumn. 

 And one has been reported stranded in Bay of 

 Islands on the west coast of Newfoundland as late 

 as the end of October. 27 But it is not likely that 

 any can survive the winter in our Gulf, or anywhere 

 along the coast to the northward. Neither is there 



any reason to suppose that the waifs that visit 

 our Gulf ever spawn there. 28 



Sharp-tailed sunfish Masturus lanceolatus 

 (Lienard) 1840 29 



Figure 283. — Sharp-tailed sunfish (Maslurus lanceolatus) . 

 Above, adult, Miami, Florida, after Gudger. Below, 

 young, 54 mm., Massachusetts Bay, after Putnam. 



" Reported in the Boston American, June 24, 1930. 

 » Cox, Bull. Nat. Hist. Soc. New Brunswick, No. 13, art. 2, 1896, p. 75. 

 >' Reported in the Boston Traveler, November 2, 1926, from the Associated 

 Press. 



» Sunfish fry, about 2 inches long, taken in Massachusetts Bay many years 

 ago and reported by Putnam (Proc. Amer. Assoc. Advancement of Science, 

 19th Meeting (1870), 1871, pp. 255, 256, fig. 3) as this species, actually be- 

 longed to the closely allied sharptailed sunfish (p. 532), as shown by Schmidt 

 (Meddel. Kommiss. Havundersogelser, Denmark, Ser. Fiskeri, vol. 6, 1921, 

 Pt. 6, p. 6), and by Qudger (Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1937, Ser A, p. 382). 



» It is an open question still, whether specimens with longer tail fins and 

 others with shorter tail fins represent two separate species, or whether the 

 dlflerences between them are sexual ones. See Fraser-Brunner (Bull. 

 British Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 1, No. 6, 1951, p. 105) for a recent discussion of 

 this subject. 



