FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



189 



may have grown at very different rates, as shown 

 by the structure of their scales. Consequently, 

 the length of a fish older than a yearling is no 

 criterion to its age within 2 or 3 years. Wode- 

 house's 81 studies on cod caught at the mouth 

 of the Bay of Fundy and the Bureau of Fisheries 

 investigations on Nantucket Shoals, suggest that 

 cod grow more rapidly in the Gulf of Maine than 

 in European waters, as follows: 



The fact that cod run much larger in the Gulf 

 of Maine than in either the North Sea or the 

 Norwegian Sea, and that those of 75 pounds and 

 heavier, such as are brought in every year from 

 our coastal waters are unusual on the other side of 

 the Atlantic, tends to corroborate the American 

 age estimates, but the desirability of further 

 investigation along this line is self-evident. 



Judging from the foregoing table the general 

 run of mature shore cod caught in the Gulf of 

 Maine (5 to 20 pounds) are 3 to 8 years old, but 

 whether the very large fish have grown excep- 

 tionally rapidly or are many years old, remains 

 to be learned. 



The smallest ripe male recorded for American 

 waters weighed about %){ pounds; the smallest 

 ripe female 4 pounds, 82 that is, they were in their 

 fourth winter. Probably a considerable propor- 

 tion of our cod mature when they are 5 to 6 

 years old ; and practically all of them do so by the 

 time they are 9 years old, as Thompson found 

 for the cod of Newfoundland. 83 



General range. — Both sides of the North Atlan- 

 tic, north to West Greenland, Davis Strait, Reso- 

 lution Island, Hudson Strait in the west, 83 " south 



" Contrib. Canadian Biol. (1914-15), 1916, p. 103. 



•» Earll. Rept. 0. S. Comm. Fish. (1878) 1880, p. 717. 



" Research Bull. No. 14, Newfoundland Dept. Nat. Resources. 1943, p. 87. 



>!■ Dunbar (Kennedy, Natural History, Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 62, 

 No. 2, 1953, p. 78) has recently reported cod landlocked in southern Baffin 

 Land in a so-called ' ' lake" where the surface is fresh but the deeper water salt. 



nearly if not quite to Cape Hatteras on the Ameri- 

 can coast; abundant from northern Labrador to 

 Nantucket Shoals, and to New York and New 

 Jersey in winter, when a few are annually caught 

 as far south as the northern part of the North 

 Carolina coast. The continental slope marks the 

 offshore boundary for the cod off the North 

 American coast. The range of the cod in the 

 eastern Atlantic extends from Nova Zembla, 

 Spitzbergen, and Bear Island in the north to the 

 northern part of the Bay of Biscay in the south, 

 and up the Baltic to Finland. The North Pacific 

 cod, with smaller air bladder (G. macrocephalus) 

 cannot be separated from the Altantic cod by 

 external appearance. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The cod 

 ranks with the herring, mackerel, rosefish, had- 

 dock, pollock, and silver hake as one of the most 

 plentiful of the important food fishes in the Gulf 

 of Maine. Cod were the mainstay of its com- 

 mercial fisheries from earliest colonial times and 

 until the market began to welcome the haddock. 

 We fancy there is no patch of hard bottom, rock, 

 gravel, or sand with broken shells, from Cape 

 Sable in the east to Cape Cod on the west, but 

 supports more or less cod at one time or another. 

 Cod are even caught on soft mud bottoms, 

 though they are not common there. And while 

 the cod are essentially fish of the open sea, they 

 appear regularly in various river mouths in 

 Maine and Massachusetts during the late autumn 

 and winter. One is taken in brackish water 

 occasionally. 



The eastern half of Georges Bank has always 

 been a most productive cod ground and one of the 

 most famous south of the Grand Banks of New- 

 foundland. The next largest Gulf of Maine 

 fares are brought in from the South Channel- 

 Nantucket Shoals region in the southwestern 

 part of the Gulf, and from Browns Bank in the 

 eastern part, the latter being especially productive 

 in winter. The broken bottom off Seal Island, 

 Nova Scotia, the ground near Lurcher Shoal, and 

 Grand Manan Bank are all famous cod grounds. 

 Other well-known inshore grounds are certain 

 hard patches off Chatham (Cape Cod) ; between 

 Provincetown and Plymouth and off the latter 

 port; Jeffreys Ledge, Ipswich Bay, Cashes Ledge, 

 Platts Bank, and Fippenies. Small vessels like- 

 wise make good catches on the succession of 

 hard and rocky patches that border the coast 



