374 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Color. — Bluish or silvery brown above, paler 

 on the sides, and white below. In young fish 

 (no large ones have been reported from within our 

 limits) the sides are conspicuously crossbarred 

 with 5 or 6 broad dark blue or brown bands, the 

 last 4 run up on the dorsal fin and the last 2 or 3 

 down on the anal fin. There also is a dark band 

 running obliquely from the first dorsal to the eye 

 in some cases. All of these bands fade with 

 growth, however, to disappear in large fish. The 

 first dorsal is black, the anal white at the base, 

 the ventrals black above, pale below, and the 

 caudal dusky green, with white tips. 62 



Size. — Maximum length about 3 feet. 



General range. — Atlantic Coast of America, 

 Halifax, Nova Scotia, 63 to Gulf of Mexico. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine.- — The rudder- 

 fish is ordinarily a rare visitor to the Gulf of 

 Maine, and most of those that have been seen 

 there have been small, made conspicuous by their 

 crossbarred pattern. Two were taken at Well- 

 fleet in 1844 and 1849 (mentioned by Storer); 

 another at Beverly in May 1866; one five inches 

 long at Provincetown in 1870; and one at Salem 

 sometime prior to 1879. A gap then follows in 

 the record until September 1921, when one was 

 caught by an angler fishing for smelt at a wharf 

 in Portland Harbor. 64 Another, of 5?2 inches was 

 caught on September 22, 1929, also by an angler 

 fishing for smelt; one of 6% inches was taken on 

 Nantucket Shoals August 1, 1930 ; 66 several were 

 reported in 1949 at Boothbay Harbor, the Sheep- 

 scot River, and at Gloucester. 66 However, in the 



a We have do color notes from life. 



•' Reported by Leim, Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Sci., vol. 17, 1930, No. IV, 

 p. xlvi, as £?. dumerili. 

 " Reported to us by Walter H. Rich. 



" Reported by Firth, Bull. 61, Boston Soe. Nat. Hist.; 1931, p. 12. 

 M Reported by Scattergood, Trefethen, and Coffin, Copeia, 1951, p. 298. 



summer and fall of the years 1949-51 large num- 

 bers of them were caught or observed in and 

 around the traps at Barnstable, Cape Cod Bay, 

 and one day's record catch by one set of pound 

 nets, within this period, amounted to two barrels 67 

 indicating that, in some years, large schools of 

 rudderfish are sometimes present in the latter 

 region. 



Small fry 1 % to 7 inches long are regular summer 

 visitors at Woods Hole. 



Mackerel scad Decapterus macarellus (Cuvier and 

 Valenciennes) 1833 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 909. 



Description. — This scad is easily recognized 

 among such of its tribe as are known from our 

 Gulf by the presence of a small detached finlet 

 between the second dorsal and the base of the 

 caudal fin with another similar to it behind the 

 anal. 6S Furthermore, it is more slender than 

 most of the other pompanos; its body is only about 

 one-fifth as deep as it is long, and fusiform like 

 the mackerel. But the great length of the second 

 dorsal fin and the fact that there is only one 

 dorsal finlet and one anal finlet would separate a 

 mackerel scad from a mackerel at a glance. The 

 mouth of the scad is smaller, and its premaxillary 

 bones are protractile. Its triangular first dorsal 

 fin (8 spines) originates over the middle of the 

 pectorals. Its second dorsal (about 34 rays) is 



w Information supplied by Frank Mather who was informed of the 1949- 

 1951 catches at Barnstable by Capt. John Vetorino in whose traps many of 

 these rudderfish were caught. 



48 A second scad, the round robin (Decapterus punctatus), similarly 

 characterized, is known as far north as the Woods Hole region. It has 40 or 

 more scutes or shieldlike scales along the lateral line, instead of only about 

 30 or 31; its jaws are toothed, and it is spotted along the lateral line, char- 

 acters that separate it from the mackerel scad. 



Figure 199. — Mackerel scad (Decapterus macarellus), Woods Hole. After Goode. Drawing by H. L. Todd. 



