530 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



round worms and flat worms inhabiting its intes- 

 tines. 



Color. — Dark gray above, the back with a 

 brownish cast, the sides paler with silvery re- 

 flections, the belly dusky to dirty white. Some 

 descriptions mention a broad blackish bar along 

 the bases of the dorsal and anal fins, but nothing 

 of the sort was to be seen in the only example we 

 have handled fresh from the water. 



Size. — The sunfish grows to a great size. 

 Heilner 18 describes the capture of one 10 feet 11 

 inches long off Avalon (Calif.), while Jordan and 

 Evermann record another Californian specimen 

 8 feet 2 inches long, weighing about 1,800 pounds. 



One measuring 8 feet in length and 1 1 feet from 

 tip of dorsal fin to tip of anal fin was exhibited in 

 London in 1883, 19 and an 8-foot specimen was 

 taken off Cape Lookout (N. C.) in 1904, 20 but 

 large ones such as this are exceptional, the general 

 run being from 3 to 5 feet (rarely 6 feet) long, and 

 from 175 pounds to 500 pounds in weight. A fish 

 0i feet long is about 31 inches across the body and 

 6K feet from the tip of the dorsal fin to the tip of 

 the anal. One, 5 feet 3 inches long, was 4 feet 2 

 inches wide and 14% inches thick. 21 A fish 4 feet 

 1 inch long, caught off Boston Harbor, August 14, 

 1922, weighed 516 pounds. 22 



Habits. — The sunfish is a wanderer of the high 

 seas, drifting at the mercy of the ocean currents; 

 those that are seen are at the surface (see following 

 for an exception) ; how deep they may descend is 

 not known. 



When these unlucky vagrants are sighted in our 

 cool northern waters they have usually been 

 chilled into partial insensibility. They float 

 awash on the surface, feebly fanning with one or 

 the other fin, the personification of helplessness. 

 Usually they pay no attention to the approach of 

 a boat, but we have seen one come to life with 

 surprising suddenness and sound swiftly, sculling 

 with strong fin strokes, just before we came within 

 harpoon range. When one is struck it struggles 

 and thrashes vigorously while the tackle is being 

 slung to hoist it aboard, suggesting that they are 

 far more active in their native haunts than their 



11 Bull. New York Zool. Soc, vol. 23, No. 6, November 1920, p. 126. 

 " Smitt, Scandinavian Fishes, vol. 1, 1892, p. 62G. 



» Smith, North Carolina Geological and Economic Survey, vol. 2, 1907. 

 p. 353. 

 !> As reported in the Boston American for Juno 24, 1930. 

 a Reported, with photograph, in the Boston Daily Post for August 14, 1922 



feeble movements in fatally cold surroundings 

 might suggest. 



The sunfish lives on an unusual diet, for as a 

 rule the contents of the stomach consists either of 

 jellyfish, ctenophores, or salpae, or of a slimy liquid 

 that probably represents the partially digested 

 remains of these. This has been true of all the 

 sunfish brought in to the Bureau of Fisheries at 

 Woods Hole. But various crustacean, molluscan, 

 hydroid, and serpent-star remains, even bits of 

 algae and eelgrass (Zostera), have been found in 

 sunfish stomachs in European waters, proving 

 that at times they either feed on the bottom in 

 shoal water, or among patches of floating weed. 

 And their jaws certainly seem fit for harder fare 

 than jellyfish. 



The spawning habits are not known, nor have 

 the eggs been seen; presumably these are buoyant, 

 with many globules, as are those of the sharp-tailed 

 sunfish Masturus lanceolatus. The young fry differ 

 from their parents in being armed with 8 short 

 stout spines on either side, and with a single 

 median row of 4 spines along the back and 7 along 

 the ventral margin of the body. 23 



General range. — Oceanic and cosmopolitan in 

 tropical and temperate seas; known northward to 

 northern Norway on the European side of the 

 Atlantic, to the Newfoundland banks, the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, and the outer coast of Nova Scotia 

 on the American side. 24 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The sunfish is 

 only a stray visitor to our Gulf, which it enters 

 now and then from the warmer and more congenial 

 waters outside the continental slope. There are 

 published records of its appearance in St. John 

 Harbor, New Brunswick, near Birch Harbor; near 

 Seguin Island; off Small Point; and off Cape Eliza- 

 beth (Maine), where it has been reported re- 

 peatedly; off Cape Ann; and from various localities 

 in Massachusetts Bay. Sunfish have even been 



" For a discussion of the young fry of the ocean sunfishes, with illustrations 

 and references to earlier accounts, see Schmidt, Meddel. Kommission 

 Havundersflgelser, Ser. Fiskeri, Denmark, vol. 6, 1921, No. 6. 



3 * Localities where sunfish had been reported in the Qulf of St. Lawrence 

 up to 1947 include north of Cape Breton; Bathurst, New Brunswick; North- 

 umberland Straits; the north shore of the Gaspe Peninsula; the south shore 

 of the Gulf opposite the Saguenay River; vicinity of Trois Pistoles; Anticosti; 

 and Bay of Islands on the west coast of Newfoundland. See Medcoff and 

 Scbiflman (Acadian Naturalist, vol. 2, No. 7, 1947) for list with details. 

 Dunbar (Canad. Field Naturalist, vol. 64, No. 3, 1950, p. 124) has recently 

 reported one, 6 feet long, that was found on the beach at Metis on the southern 

 shore of the Lower St. Lawrence River. A Gulf of St. Lawrence record that 

 is especially interesting because so late in the season, is of one about 5 feet 

 long that stranded late in October 1, 1926, at Curling, Bay of Islands, west 

 coast of Newfoundland (reported in the Boston Traveler for Nov. 2, 1926) . 



