FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



379 



Figure 204. — Moonfish (Vomer setapinnis). After Goode. Original drawing by H. L. Todd. 



caudal is greenish yellow; the pectorals light 

 yellow or dusky greenish. 



Size. — Said to reach 1 foot in length, but most 

 of them are less than 9 inches long. 



General range. — Warm seas off the east coast of 

 America from Uruguay to Cape Cod, straying to 

 Nova Scotia; common from Chesapeake Bay 

 southward. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This waif from 

 warmer waters has been recorded from the South 

 Channel off Cape Cod (one specimen 1% inches 

 long) ; off Cape Cod (60 miles south by east from 

 Highland Light), where one was taken in a mack- 

 erel seine, August 23, 1929 ; 78 from Gloucester 

 (several specimens) ; from Magnolia, Danvers, 

 Salem, and South Boston (a specimen 2 inches 

 long) around Massachusetts Bay; from Saco 

 Beach (fry of about 1 to 3 inches) ; and from Casco 

 Bay in Maine. It has even been reported once 

 or twice as far east as Liverpool and Halifax, 

 Nova Scotia. 79 Thus it appears to reach our 

 Gulf rather more often than any of its relatives 

 do; not often enough, however, for most of the 

 fishermen of whom we have inquired to know it 

 north of Cape Cod. It appears more often (if 

 irregularly) at Woods Hole, where young fish 

 are sometimes common in August and September. 



™ Reported by Firth, Bull. 61, Boston Society Natural History, 1931, p. 12. 

 '• Leim (Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 17, No. 4, 1950, p. xlvi); Vlady- 

 kov (Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 19, 1935, p. 8). 



Lookdown Selene vomer (Linnaeus) 1758 



Horsehead; Moonfish 



Jordan and Evermann, 1895-1900, p. 935. 



Description. — The very high second dorsal 

 (about 22 rays) and anal fins (about 20 rays) of 

 the lookdown, and their peculiar falcate outline 

 with the second ray much the longest and the 

 next 4 or 5 rays successively shorter make dis- 

 tinction easy between it and the moonfish. And 

 its peculiar form is hardly less characteristic, for 

 it shares with the moonfish a deep, rhomboid, but 

 very thin flat body (the trunk is only about one 

 and one-quarter times as long as deep), abruptly 

 truncate in front, with slightly concave upper 

 anterior profile, and tapering rearward to a slender 

 caudal peduncle. The mouth is set so low and 

 the eye so high that the expression of its face is 

 very characteristic. When adult the first dorsal 

 is reduced to 7 or 8 short inconspicuous spines, 

 only the first 3 of which are connected by a mem- 

 brane, and the ventrals are very small; but some 

 of the spines of the first dorsal are very long in 

 fry up to 4 or 5 inches in length, the ventrals are 

 much longer than in the adults, and the anal fin 

 is preceded by two short detached spines that 

 disappear with growth. The caudal fin is deeply 

 forked like that of other pompauos, and the 

 pectorals are sharp pointed and falciform, reaching 

 back behind the middle of the second dorsal fin. 



Color. — Small specimens, and northern strays 

 usually are small, are silvery above as well as 



