504 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



darker bands or blotches, or scattered spots, that 

 extend out on the dorsal fin. The throat and the 

 belly back to the vent are dirty-white tinged with 

 the general ground tint of the upper parts. Wolf- 

 fish fade so soon after they are caught that those 

 seen in the markets usually are much paler than 

 they were in life. 



Size. — A length of 5 feet seems about the maxi- 

 mum in Gidf of Maine waters; one more than 4 

 feet long is seldom seen, and the larger fish caught 

 and brought in run less than 3 feet. European 

 authors speak of wolffish of 6 feet and even longer, 

 but they average only about 2 feet in Scandinavian 

 waters, 95 i. e., scarcely so large as those in the Gulf 

 of Maine. A fish 33 inches long weighs about 10 

 pounds, one of 37 inches between 16 and 17 

 pounds. The greatest weight reported for Ameri- 

 can waters so far is about 40 pounds. 96 



Habits. — The wolffish is solitary, living one 

 here and one there, and it is not abundant any- 

 where, in the sense that this term can be applied 

 to the cod, to the haddock, to the pollock, or others 

 of our commercially important fishes. It holds 

 close to the bottom; and it is always caught on 

 hard ground, never on mud, a preference illus- 

 trated by the fact that our experimental trawlings 

 on the soft bottom of the deep troughs within the 

 Gulf did not catch one wolffish, though they did 

 yield a variety of other fishes in plenty. 97 It is a 

 weak swimmer, moving by sinuous side to side 

 undulations like a blenny or an eel; and probably 

 it spends most of its life hidden among seaweed or 

 rocks, or nosing about such surroundings for food. 

 There is no reason to suppose that it ever attacks 

 other fish in its normal way of life, but when 

 hauled out of the water it snaps like a bulldog 

 and with good aim at anything in its way, the 

 hands, an oar, or at other fish among which it is 

 thrown, and it can inflict a serious bite. Goode 98 

 remarks that it has been known to make a furious 

 attack on persons wading among the rock pools at 

 Eastport, Maine. 



The depth zone occupied bj T the wolffish at one 

 time or another extends from a fathom or so below 

 tide mark down to 85 fathoms at least, and very 

 likely deeper. It has been reported in tide pools 

 at Eastport, but we have never heard of it in such 



•> Smltt, Scandinavian Fishes, vol. 1, 1892, p. 232. 

 •• Goode, Fish. Ind. U. S. Sect. 1, 1884, p. 249. 



•' For list of species taken, see Blgelow and Schroeder, Diol. Bull. vol. 7(1, 

 1939, p. 309. 

 •« Fish. Ind. U. S. Sect. 1, 1884, p. 249. 



situations or at low-water mark anywhere else 

 in the Gulf, nor does it run up estuaries, and it is 

 probable that most of the local stock lives in depths 

 of 10 to 50 or 60 fathoms. 



The wolffish is a cool- and cold-water fish, as 

 might be assumed from the fact that its regular 

 geographic range extends hardly farther west than 

 Cape Cod and Nantucket shoals. Those living in 

 the coastal belt of our Gulf, at depths of 25 fathoms 

 or less, regularly experience temperatures as low as 

 34°-36° (locally even as low as 32°) at the end of 

 the winter, or at some time during the spring, 

 according to locality. 99 They are in temperatures 

 equally low or even lower, fractionally, in late 

 spring and early summer on the fishing grounds 

 along outer Nova Scotia, while the grounds where 

 they are caught in the Gulf of St. Lawrence are 

 flooded every spring and early summer, with water 

 as cold as 32°, which they can avoid only by de- 

 scending deeper into the Laurentian Trough, a 

 movement of which we have no direct evidence. 

 And they have been caught, widespread, on the 

 Newfoundland Banks (p. 507) in water as cold as 

 30°-31°. At the other extreme, the highest tem- 

 perature in which wolffish occur in any numbers is 

 about 50°-52°, at the end of summer (again for 

 those living shoalest) in the coastal belt of our 

 Gulf, and also on the Nantucket shoals grounds. 

 They are never known to run up into brackish 

 water. 



The wolffish is resident wherever it is found, to 

 be caught throughout the year. For example, 

 about as many are brought in from Georges Bank 

 in one month as in another, allowance being made 

 for the difficulties and dangers of winter fishing. 

 And as it passes through only a brief pelagic stage 

 when it is young (p. 506), it is a comparatively 

 stationary fish, with much less interchange from 

 one locality to another than is the case with cod or 

 with haddock. 



The diet of the wolffish consists wholly of hard- 

 shelled mollusks, crustaceans, and echinoderms. 

 So far as we can learn fish have never been found 

 in the stomach of a wolffish. Mr. Clapp found 

 that the 50 or 60 fish that he opened on Georges 

 Bank had all eaten large whelks (Buccinum), 

 cockles (Polynices, Chrysodomus and Sipho), sea 

 clams (Alactra), and other shellfish, which it 

 crushes easilv in its viselike molars. Sometimes, 



>' For further details, see Bigelow, Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 40, part 2, 

 1927, p. 542. 



