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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



fringe the sides of the trunk as far back as the 

 base of the caudal fin. Furthermore, the upper 

 side of the head bears several low conical tubercles 

 which vary in prominence from fish to fish. 



Color. — The many goosefish we have seen (and 

 this corroborates the published accounts) have 

 been chocolate brown above, variously and finely 

 mottled with pale and dark. The dorsal fins, the 

 upper sides of the pectoral fins, and the caudal fin 

 are of a darker shade of the same color as the back, 

 except nearly black at the tips, while the whole 

 lower surface of the fish is white or dirty white. 

 Sometimes, it is said, the upper side is dotted with 

 white spots but we have seen none that were 

 marked in that way. Very small ones are de- 

 scribed as mottled and speckled with green and 

 brown. Wilson, who watched many in the 

 aquarium at Plymouth, England, 37 writes that the 

 European species is able to match both its color 

 and its color pattern closely to the sand and 

 gravel on which it lies. 



Size. — Adults run from 2 to 4 feet long, 38 weigh- 

 ing up to 50 pounds, and heavier ones have been 

 reported. One 38 inches long, caught at Woods 

 Hole on July 25, 1923, weighed 32 pounds alive. 



Remarks. — The goosefish of eastern North 

 America has usually been thought identical with 

 the widespread eastern Atlantic angler (i. pisca- 

 torius Linnaeus. But as Taning 39 has pointed 

 out, the late larval stages of our fish do not 

 resemble those of L. piscatorius as closely as they 

 do those of the angler of the Mediterranean and 

 of neighboring parts of the Atlantic that various 

 authors regard as a separate species, L. budegassa, 

 Spinosa 1807. 40 This suggests that the goosefish 

 of the western Atlantic is a distinct species, for 

 which Berrill 41 has revived the old name L. 

 americanus Cuvier and Valenciennes 1837. 



The adults of the three forms in question cer- 

 tainly resemble one another so closely that we 

 have not found any external differences that seem 

 significant to separate Gulf of Maine fish from 

 two specimens from northern Europe, and others 



" Jour. Marine Biol. Assoc. United Kingdom, vol. 21, Pt. 2, 1937, p. 485. 



18 Rumor has it that goosefish grow to 6 feet, but we find none definitely 

 recorded (and have seen none) longer than 4 feet. 



»' Rept. Danish Oceanogr. Expeds. (1908-1910), No. 7, vol. 2, Biol. A. 10., 

 1923, p. 7-16. 



« See Regan, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. Ser. 7, vol. 11, 1903, p. 283 for descrip- 

 tions of L. piscatorius, of L. budegassa, and of a new species, vaillaJiti, described 

 by him from the Azores and from the Capo Verde Islands. 



U Oontrib. Canadian Biol. N. Ser., vol. 4, No. 12, 1929. 



from the Mediterranean (all of about the same 

 size) with which we have compared them. But 

 it seems wisest to retain the separate name for 

 our form until the larval differences can be investi- 

 gated further (which we are not in a position to 

 do), and until much larger series of grown fish 

 have been compared. 



Habits. — The depth range inhabited by the 

 goosefish extends from tide line down to at least 

 365 fathoms on the continental slope off southern 

 New England, and very likely deeper still. The 

 adults appear, for the most part, to hold to the 

 sea floor, where many are taken by the otter 

 trawlers. And they are found indifferently on 

 hard sand, on pebbly bottom, on the gravel, sand, 

 and broken shells of the good fishing grounds, and 

 on soft mud, where we have trawled them in the 

 deep basin of our Gulf. 



Specimens of the closely allied European goose- 

 fish kept in the aquarium at Plymouth, England, 

 spent most of the time resting quietly. 42 When 

 they swam they did so slowly, and they used their 

 paired fins for walking on the bottom. Wilson 

 describes one as digging a small hollow in the 

 bottom when it settled down, using its pelvic fins 

 to shovel the sand and pebbles forwards-outwards, 

 and using its pectorals, almost like webbed hands, 

 to push the sand away to either side until its back 

 was almost flush with the surrounding bottom. 

 But the fact that goosefish have been known to 

 seize and swallow hooked fish as the latter were 

 being hauled up, and even to capture sea birds 

 sitting on the surface, proves that while they 

 ordinarily snap up their prey from ambush, or by a 

 sudden short rush, they may make considerable 

 excursions for a meal on occasion. 



The American goosefish is at home through a 

 very wide range of temperature. They have been 

 trawled on the Newfoundland banks in water as 

 cold as 32°, 43 and it is likely that those living 

 shoalest in the Gulf of St. Lawrence are exposed to 

 equally low temperatures, in late winter and in 

 spring. But we doubt if they can survive much 

 colder water, for many were seen floating dead in 

 Narragansett Bay, and on the shore, during the 



« Wilson (Jour. Mar. Biol. Assoc. United Kingdom, yo*. 21, Pt. 2, 1937, 

 pp. 486-490) has given a very interesting account of the habits of specimens in 

 the aquarium at Plymouth, England, where some were kept for as long as 

 11 months. 



u Rept., vol. 2, No. 1, Newfoundland Fish. Res. Comm, 1933, p. 12i 

 sta. 97. 



