200 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



lateral line (that of cod and of pollock is paler 

 than the general ground tint) and in the presence 

 of a dusky blotch on each side over the middle 

 of the pectoral fin, and close below the lateral line. 

 Furthermore the first dorsal fin of a haddock 

 (higher than that of a cod, relatively) is con- 

 siderably higher than either the second or third 

 dorsal, more acutely triangular in outline, and 

 with slightly concave margin. The margin of the 

 haddock's tail is more concave than that of the 

 cod ; and its second and third dorsal fins are more 

 angular than is usuaUy the case with the cod, 

 though they are similarly rhomboidal in outline. 



The haddock's mouth is relatively the smaller, 

 not gaping back to below the eye, and the lower 

 profile of its face is straight, with the upper profile 

 only slightly rounded, giving the nose a charac- 

 teristic wedge-shaped outline in side view. The 

 upper jaw projects further beyond the lower in 

 the haddock than in the cod, and the snout is 

 usually more pointed and the body more flattened 

 sidewise. But the general arrangement of the 

 fins is the same; there are about the same number 

 of dorsal fin rays in haddock as in cod (14 to 17, 

 20 to 24, and 19 to 22, in the first, second, and 

 third fins, respectively) ; and while the anal 

 fins average one or two more rays each (21 to 25 

 and 20 to 24), individual cod may have more 

 anal rays than individual haddock. Finally, the 

 haddock is a slimmer fish than the cod and al- 

 though its scales (which clothe it from nose to 

 tail) are of about the same size relatively (about 

 160 rows along the side), they are scarcely visible 

 through the mucus with which the skin is coated. 20 



Color. — When a live haddock is first taken from 

 the water, the top of its head, back, and sides 

 down to the lateral line are dark purplish gray, 

 paling below the lateral line to a beautiful silvery 

 gray with pinkish reflections, and with the black 

 lateral line and the sooty shoulder patch (just 

 mentioned) standing out vividly. This patch, the 

 "devil's mark," is indefinitely outlined and varies 

 in size and in distinctness, but oidy very rarely 

 does a haddock fail to show it. The belly and 

 lower sides of the head are white. The dorsal, 

 pectoral, and caudal fins are dark gray; the anal 

 fins pale like the lower part of the sides and black 

 specked at the base; and the ventrals are white, 

 more or less dotted with black. Haddock usually 



» Vladykov (Canadian Field Natural., vol. 49, No. 4, 1935, p. 64) describes 

 a haddock with 3 eyes, and includes a photograph of it. 



run very uniform in color, but occasionally one 

 shows from one to four dark transverse bars or 

 splotches in addition to the black shoulder blotch. 

 Several of these serially striped haddock have been 

 taken in Passamaquoddy Bay 2I and we have seen 

 such near Mount Desert. Occasionally a haddock 

 may be decidedly golden on the back and sides, 

 with the lateral line golden, and such fish may 

 lack the dark blotches. 



Size. — The haddock is a smaller fish than the 

 cod, the largest on record having been only 44 

 inches long, weighing about 37 pounds. 22 One of 

 30 pounds, caught on La Have Bank in the autumn 

 of 1949 23 is said to have been the heaviest ever 

 landed at the Boston Fish Pier. The largest 

 among 1,300 fish that were measured and weighed 

 by Welsh near Gloucester during the spring of 

 1913 was 35K inches long, weighing about 16K 

 pounds. Only 4 or 5 out of the more than ten 

 thousand haddock that we have helped to tag 

 were as long as 32 to 34 inches. And the great 

 majority of the fish that are brought in measure 

 from 14 to 23 inches long, and weigh from 1% to 

 4% pounds. The largest among 627,996 fish meas- 

 ured during the period 1931-1948 was 34% inches 

 long. 24 The relationship between length and 

 weight averages as follows, according to Shuck ; 2S 

 10 inches, 7 ounces; 12 inches, 12 ounces; 14 

 inches, 1 pound 2 ounces; 16 inches, 1 pound 11 

 ounces; 18 inches, 2 pounds, 6 ounces; 20 inches, 

 3 pounds 3 ounces; 22 inches, 4 pounds 3 ounces; 

 24 baches, 5 pounds 5 ounces; 26 inches, 6 pounds 

 9 ounces; 28 inches, 8 pounds 3 ounces; 30 inches, 

 9 pounds 15 ounces. 



Habits. — Haddock live deeper than cod on the 

 whole; few are caught in less than 5 to 10 fathoms 

 of water and most of them in 25 to 75 fathoms. 

 In fact, they so seldom come into shoal water 

 where young cod are so plentiful that the pound 

 nets of Massachusetts reported only about 5,000 

 pounds of haddock in 1919, as compared with 

 almost 300,000 pounds of cod. Neither do we 

 remember hearing of a haddock of any size in any 

 of the shoal harbors where little pollock so abound. 

 And the difference in habitat between these closely 

 related species holds from the time the young fry 



=i Prince, Contrib. Canadian Biol., (1915-1916) 1917, p. 86. 



" This giant was an Icelandic fish, reported by Thompson (Rapp. et Proc. 

 Verbaux, Conseil Internat. Perm. Explor. Mer, vol. 57, 1929, p. 29). 



» Received by O'Hara Bros., and reported by Moore, Boston Herald, Nov. 

 29, 1949. 



»* Information from Howard W. Schuck. 



» Fishery leaflet No. 198, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 1947. 



