FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



535 



winter of 1904-1905, apparently killed by the 

 unusually severe cold. 44 



At the other extreme, goosefish picked up by net 

 fishermen near Cape Lookout, N. C, in shoal 

 water (p. 540) are exposed to temperatures higher 

 than 70° for part of the season, perhaps as high as 

 75°. But reports 45 that the inshore contingent of 

 the goosefish population of Rhode Island waters 

 works out (i. e., deeper) in July, to work inshore 

 again in October suggest that they tend to avoid 

 extreme summer heat, if they can do so by de- 

 scending into deeper water. 



They are tolerant to a wide range of salinity 

 also, occurring as they do from estuarine situa- 

 tions out to the upper part of the continental 

 slope. But we have never heard of one in brack- 

 ish water. 



The larvae of the goosefish, like those of most 

 sea fishes, feed on various small pelagic animals 

 such as copepods, crustacean larvae, and glass 

 worms (Sagitta); and Sagitta is the chief diet of 

 young goosefish in the Adriatic during the life of 

 the latter near the surface, hence may serve this 

 same purpose in the Gulf of Maine. 



The goosefish becomes a fish eater in the main 

 after it takes to the bottom, and the following 

 Gulf of Maine species have been recorded from its 

 stomach: spiny dogfish, skates of various kinds, 

 eels, launce, herring, alewives, menhaden, smelts, 

 mackerel, weakfish, cunners, tautog, sea bass, 

 butterfish, puffers, various sculpins, sea ravens, 

 sea robins, sea snails, silver hake, tomcod, cod, 

 haddock, hake, witch flounders, American dab, 

 yellowtail flounders, winter flounders, and various 

 other species of flatfish unnamed, as well as its own 

 kind. The goosefish often captures sea birds, as 

 one of the vernacular names implies, cormorants, 

 herring gulls, widgeons, scoters, loons, guillemots, 

 and razor-billed auks are on its recorded dietary, 

 while we have found grebes and other diving fowl, 

 such as scaup ducks and mergansers, in goosefish 

 in Pamlico Sound, N. C. It is questionable, 

 however, whether even the largest of them would 

 be able to master a live goose, as rumor has it, nor 

 do the local fishermen believe it ever does so in 

 Pamlico Sound, though the abundance of wild 

 geese there in winter would afford it every op- 



41 Reported by Tracy, 36th Rept. Comm. Inland Fish. Rhode Island, 

 I90G. p. 92. 

 " Tracy, 36 Rept. Comm. Inland Fish., Rhode Island 1906, p. 92. 



portunity. Goode, 46 however, tells of one which 

 a fisherman saw struggling with a loon. Even a 

 sea turtle has been found in one. 47 



Goosefish are also known to devour invertebrates 

 such as lobsters, crabs of several species, hermit 

 crabs, squids, annelid worms, shellfish, starfish, 

 sand dollars, and even eelgrass. Linton's 48 report 

 of one that was full of mud containing small shell- 

 fish, crustaceans, and worms is interesting. In 

 short, nothing edible that strays within reach 

 comes amiss to a goosefish. And examinations of 

 stomachs have shown that the relative importance 

 of various articles in its diet varies widely on 

 different grounds, depending on what is available. 

 Thus Field 49 found skates, flounders, and squid 

 their chief dependence near Woods Hole. The 

 32-pounder from there, mentioned above, con- 

 tained 2 menhaden, 1 spiny dogfish a foot long, 

 and the vertebral columns of 6 others; while goose- 

 fish diet largely on hakes in the Bay of Fundy; 60 

 on haddock, flatfish, and on skates on Georges 

 Bank. 



The goosefish has often been cited for its re- 

 markable appetite. We read, for instance, of one 

 that had made a meal of 21 flounders and 1 dog- 

 fish, all of marketable size; of half a pailful of 

 cunners, tomcod, and sea bass in another; of 75 

 herring in a third; and of one that had taken 7 

 wild ducks at one meal. In fact it is nothing 

 unusual for one to contain at one time a mass of 

 food half as heavy as the fish itself. And with its 

 enormous mouth (one 3/2 feet long gapes about 9 

 inches horizontally and 8 inches vertically) it is 

 able to swallow fish of almost its own size. Ful- 

 ton, for instance, found a codling 23 inches long 

 in a British goosefish of only 26 inches, while 

 Field took a winter flounder almost as big as its 

 captor from an American specimen. One that we 

 once gaffed at the surface, on Nantucket Shoals, 

 contained a haddock 31 inches long, weighing 12 

 pounds, while Captain Atwood long ago described 

 seeing one attempting to swaUow another as large 

 as itself. Wilson's observations, however, indi- 

 cate that they are no more gluttonous than any 

 other rapacious fish, for those that he watched in 

 the aquarium usually refused food for 2 or 3 days 



•« Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 1, 1884, p. 174. 



« Schroeder, Copcia 1947, p. 201. 



•" Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 19, 1901, p. 487. 



«• Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish., (1906) 1907, Doc. No. 622, p. 39. 



10 Connelly, Bull. 3, Biol. Board Canada, 1920, p. 16. 



