FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



527 



brackish water in various estuaries, and seldom is 

 caught more than a few fathoms deep, or more than 

 a mile or two from land. Throughout the north- 

 ern part of its range it belongs in the rather 

 numerous and varied category of "summer" 

 fishes, taken from April to November in Chesa- 

 peake Bay, from late May or early June to 

 October or early November along southern New 

 England. It is probable that when the puffers 

 disappear from their usual summer haunts, with 

 the onset of cold weather, they merely descend 

 into somewhat deeper water nearby, to spend the 

 winter on bottom in a more or less quiescent state. 



Puffers feed on small crustaceans of all sorts 

 especially on crabs, shrimp, isopods and amphi- 

 pods, as well as on small mollusks, worms, barna- 

 cles, sea urchins, and other invertebrates, which 

 they find on bottom. Young fry of 7 to 10 mm., 

 examined by Dr. Linton at Woods Hole, had eaten 

 copepods as well as crustacean and molluscan 

 larvae. And they are only too ready to take 

 bait, if the hook is small enough. Where they 

 are plentiful they may be nearly as much of a 

 nuisance in this way as the cunners. 



Puffers spawn in shoal water close to the shore, 

 from mid-May, in Chesapeake Bay, and from 

 early June through the summer off southern 

 Massachusetts. And they are prolific. The ova- 

 ries of a Chesapeake Bay female, 10% inches long 

 contained (estimated) about 176,000 ova. 7 The 

 eggs (about 0.9 mm. in diameter, with many 

 small oil globules) sink and stick fast to each 

 other or to whatever they chance to touch. In- 

 cubation occupies 2>% to 5 days at a temperature of 

 about 67°-68° F. (20° C). The larvae are about 

 2.4 mm. long at hatching, and are brilliantly pig- 

 mented with red, orange, yellow, and black. In 

 3 days the mouth functions, and when they are 7 

 mm. long the young fish show most of the diag- 

 nostic characters of the adults, 8 and can inflate 

 themselves even more, in fact, until the bulging 

 skin entirely hides the dorsal and anal fins. 



General range. — Atlantic coast of the United 

 States from Florida to Cape Cod in abundance; to 

 Casco Bay in small numbers, and perhaps to the 

 Bay of Fundy as a stray. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Anglers find 

 the puffer only too plentiful along the southern 



' Hildebrand and Schroeder, Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 43, Pt. 1, 1928, 

 p. 348. 



' Welsh and Breder (Zoologica, New York Zool. Soc, vol. 2, No. 12, Jan- 

 uary 1922, N. Y.) describe the early stages in the life history of the puffer. 



shores of Massachusetts, but the elbow of Cape 

 Cod marks the eastern and northern limit to their 

 presence in any numbers. They have been re- 

 ported at Monomoy, Truro, and Provincetown. 

 Cape Cod Bay may perhaps support a small resi- 

 dent population, for Prof. A. E. Gross informs us 

 that he has seen as many as four or five taken at 

 one time in a pound net at Sandy Neck, Barn- 

 stable, at a tide, in the summer of 1920; besides 

 others stranded there on the beach. 9 And we 

 have heard of others there recently, or nearby. 

 Storer described them as common at Nahant, a 

 few miles northeast of Boston, but this seems to 

 have been an error, for Wheatland (1852, p. 214) 

 writing about the same period, not only spoke of 

 them as seldom seen in Massachusetts Bay, but 

 considered a single specimen taken in Salem Har- 

 bor in the summer of 1848 as worthy of a note. 

 And this remained the only positive record for a 

 puffer for Essex County until August 24, 1920, 

 when one was caught at Gloucester. 10 



The only records of puffers north of Cape Ann 

 that have come to our notice are of two taken in a 

 trap in Casco Bay in 1896, and of one taken near 

 Long Island, off Portland Harbor, Maine, on July 

 24, 1933. But there may be a small local popu- 

 lation in Casco Bay, and in the vicinity of Booth- 

 bay Harbor, Maine, for L. W. Scattergood u writes 

 us that the pound net fishermen have long been 

 acquainted with them there and that he had 

 received three specimens recently from Pemaquid 

 Point where the fishermen report them as com- 

 monest in June. A skeleton, apparently of a 

 puffer, has been found on the shore of Minas 

 Basin, at the head of the Bay of Fundy on the 

 Nova Scotian side. 12 



Burrfish Chilomycterus schoepjii (Walbaurn) 1792 13 



Porcupinefish; Rabbitfish; Oysterfish 

 Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 1748. 



Description. — The burrfish resembles the puffer 

 (p. 526) in the positions of its dorsal and anal fins, 

 but its skin is armed with short, stout, triangular 



• The Auk, vol. 40, 1923, p. 24. 



'<> This specimen, reported by MacCoy (Bull. 67, Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., 

 1933, p. 9) is in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 



» Letter dated September 19, 1951, V. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 



" Reported to us (1951) by Dr. A. H. Leim of the Fisheries Research 

 Board of Canada. 



'« Jordan, Evermann, and Clark place this species in the genus Cydichthyt 

 Kaup 1855. 



