FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



119 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — -We mention 

 the anchovy because it has been taken in Casco 

 Bay and at Provincetown. It has no real place 

 in the Gulf of Maine fauna, seldom straying past 

 Cape Cod, though it is abundant about Woods 

 Hole and thence westward and southward. 

 Stragglers may be expected most often in the Gulf 

 in midsummer for it appears from May to October 

 in southern New England waters. Sandy beaches 

 and the mouths of rivers are its chief resorts. An 

 account of its embryology and larval development 

 is given by Kuntz. 41 



Striped anchovy Anchoa hepsetus (Linnaeus) 1 758 



Jordan and Evermann (Stolephorus bToumii), 1896-1900, 

 p. 443. 



Description. — This anchovy resembles the pre- 

 ceding species closely, but its anal fin is shorter 

 (20 or 21 rays) and originates under the last rays 

 of the dorsal, and it has a very bright and well de- 

 fined silvery band along each side. It is a larger 

 and more robust fish than the other anchovy, 

 often more than 4 inches long. 



Color. — The bright silvery lateral band, already 

 mentioned, is the most prominent marking on this 



fish. Fresh specimens are pale gray and irides- 

 cent, the upper surface of the head with some 

 green and yellow; and the back has dusky dots. 

 The dorsal and caudal fins are more or less dusky 

 on some specimens. 



Size. — Commonly 4 to 5 inches long, maximum 

 length about 6 inches. 



General range. — Abundant from Chesapeake 

 Bay to the West Indies, and south to Uruguay; 

 north as a stray to Maine and to the outer coast 

 of Nova Scotia; 42 a more southerly fish than the 

 other anchovy. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The claim of 

 this species for mention in the Gulf of Maine is 

 based on one record off the mouth of the Penobscot 

 River, near Portland, October 8, 1930." One 

 specimen was saved and identified, and the her- 

 ring fishermen who brought it in stated that there 

 were "lots of them" on that date. It is not likely 

 that the striped anchovy is other than a straggler 

 to the Gulf, else it would have been found there 

 before this. As it is a gregarious fish, nearly 

 always traveling in small schools, it is not aston- 

 ishing that they may be found together in some 

 numbers, on occasion, even out of their usual 

 range. 





Figure 52. — Striped anchovy {Anchoa hepsetus), Somera Point, N. J., specimen 100 mm. long. 

 THE SALMONS. FAMILY SALMONIDAE 



The salmons are soft-rayed fishes with no spines 

 in any of the fins, with the ventrals situated on 

 the abdomen far behind the pectorals, and with a 

 fleshy rayless "adipose" fin on the back behind 

 the rayed dorsal fin. The presence of this adipose 

 fin, and its situation, separates them from all 

 other Gulf of Maine fishes except for the smelt, 

 capelin and the argentine, the pearlsides (p. 144), 

 and some of the lantern, viper, and lancet fish 



» Bulletin. U. S. Bur. of Fish., vol. 33, WIS, p. 13. 



tribes (p. 141). 41 The blunt noses, stout bodies, 

 and nearly square tails of the salmons distinguish 

 them at a glance from the sharper-nosed, slender, 

 forked-tailed smelts, their large mouths and smaller 

 eyes from the argentine; the absence of lumi- 

 nescent organs distinguishes them from the 



« Five were taken in Bedford Basin, Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 

 29, 1931 (Vladykov, Proc. Nova Scotia Inst. Sci., vol. 19, 1935, p. 3). 

 « Kendall, Bull. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., No. 58, 1931. 

 « Sundry other deep-sea fishes have adipose fins. 



