FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



chiefly to such of the external features of each 

 kind of fish as may serve for identification in the 

 field. 



References to more detailed descriptions and 

 synonymies are given to Bigelow and Schroeder 

 (Fishes of the Western North Atlantic, Parts 1 

 and 2, 1948, 1953) for the cartilaginous fishes; also 

 to Garman's beautiful plates for such of these as 

 he pictured in his classic monograph, published in 

 1913, in vol. 36, of the Memoirs of the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology. References for the various 

 species of bony fishes are to Jordan and Ever- 

 mann's Fishes of North and Middle America 

 (Bulletin 47, U. S. National Museum, 1896-1900, 

 Parts 1-4), which still remains the only compre- 

 hensive work on the bony fishes of North America. 

 Many of the illustrations have been borrowed 

 from earlier publications, but some of them are 

 original. 



Keys are provided for all species as a further 

 aid to identification. 



In most cases the sizes of larval fish and eggs are 

 given in millimeters (1 inch equals 25.4 mm.); the 

 sizes of the larger fishes are in inches and feet; 

 weights are in pounds. 



The scientific nomenclature of the cyclostomes, 

 of the elasmobranchs, and of the chimaeroids, 

 follows Bigelow and Schroeder (Fishes of the 

 Western North Atlantic, No. 1, Parts 1 and 2, 

 1948; 1953) that of the bony fishes follows Jordan, 

 Evermann, and Clark's Check List of the Fishes 

 and Fishlike Vertebrates of North and Middle 

 America (Report, U. S. Commissioner of Fisheries 

 for 1928 (1930), Part 2), unless otherwise noted. 

 The families of bony fishes are arranged for the 

 most part in the sequence employed by Jordan, 

 Evermann, and Clark, except that the several 

 families of luminescent fishes are grouped together, 

 in the hope of making it easier for the nontechnical 

 observer to identify such of them as may come to 

 hand. 



SOURCES OF INFORMATION 



The literature dealing with the fishes of the 

 Gulf of Maine begins with the earliest descriptions 

 of New England. Captain John Smith, for in- 

 stance, commented on the abundance of sturgeon, 

 cod, hake, haddock, cole (the American pollock), 

 cusks, sharks, mackerel, herring, dinners, eels, 

 salmon, and striped bass, in his Generall Historie 

 of Virginia, New England and the Summer Isles, 



published in 1616, while Wood in his New Eng- 

 land's Prospect, 1634, gave much interesting infor- 

 mation, some of which we quote hereafter. 



The sea fishes of northern New England and of 

 the Maritime Provinces had begun to attract 

 scientific attention by the early part of the nine- 

 teenth century, and many local faunal lists have 

 been published since then. The following are the 

 most important of these, in chronological arrange- 

 ment: 



1850. Report on the sea and river fisheries of New 

 Brunswick, within the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Bay of 

 Chaleur, M. H. Perley, 137 pp., 1850. Fredericton, New 

 Brunswick. 



1853-1867. A history of the fishes of Massachusetts, 

 David Humphreys Storer. Memoirs, American Academy 

 of Arts and Sciences, New Series, vol. 5, pp. 49-92, 122-168, 

 and 257-296; vol. 6, pp. 309-372; vol. 8, pp. 389-439; vol. 

 9, pp. 217-256, 39 pis. (Also in book form with supple- 

 ment, 1867), Cambridge and Boston. 



1879. A list of the fishes of Essex County, including 

 those of Massachusetts Bay, George Brown Goode, and 

 Tarleton H. Bean. Bulletin, Essex Institute, vol. 11, No. 

 1, pp. 1-38. Salem. 



1884. Natural history of useful aquatic animals, George 

 Brown Goode and associates, Section I, The Fisheries and 

 Fishery Industries of the United States. Published jointly 

 by the U. S. Fish Commission and the U. S. Bureau of the 

 Census, 895 pp. Washington. 



1908. Fauna of New England. 8. List of the Pisces, 

 William C. Kendall. Occasional Papers, Boston Society 

 of Natural History, vol. 7, No. 8, April 1908, pp. 1-52. 

 Boston. 



1914. An annotated catalogue of the fishes of Maine, 

 William C. Kendall. Proceedings, Portland Society of 

 Natural History, vol. 3, 1914, Part 1, pp. 1-198. Portland. 



1922. The fishes of the Bay of Fundy, A. G. Huntsman. 

 Contributions to Canadian Biology (1921), 1922, No. 3, 

 pp. 1-24 (51-72). Ottawa. 



These lists contain all the early published local- 

 ity records of the rarer species, either first hand, 

 or by reference to original sources, while the last 

 two, with a paper by Gill, 2 and the first edition of 

 the present book give complete bibliographies 

 for the Canadian coasts of the Gulf and for the 

 coasts of Maine and of Massachusetts. A similar 

 list of the captures of deep water fishes along the 

 outer part of the continental shelf is to be found in 

 Goode and Bean's "Oceanic Ichthyology." 3 



The most pertinent extralimital lists are Smith's 4 

 and Sumner, Osburn and Cole's 6 lists of Woods 



J Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish., (1904) 1905, pp. 163-188. 



3 Smithsonian Contribution to Knowledge, vol. 30, 1895. 



< Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., Vol. 17, 1898, pp. 85-111. 



1 Bull. V. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 31, Pt. 2, 1913, pp. 549-794. 



