496 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



or clay bottom probably is correct. The Albatross 

 II has taken it both on mud bottom and on hard. 



Food. — Amphipods, copepods, and other tiny 

 crustacea, with very small starfish, small bivalves, 

 and holothurians have all been found in snake- 

 blenny stomachs in British seas. These blennies 

 are eaten in their turn by large fish, by cod and 

 halibut, for example, in Massachusetts Bay, 67 by 

 pollock in the Bay of Fundy; and by cod in 

 Northumberland Strait, Gulf of St. Lawrence, as 

 Capt. Thor Iversen informed Dr. Hunstman 

 from his experience during the Canadian Fisheries 

 Expedition of 1915. 



The spawning season has been stated as autumn 

 or winter in north Scandinavian seas, and it may 

 commence by late summer there, or by early 

 autumn, for Sim found its roe well advanced in 

 development as early in the season as the end of 

 April. Its drifting larvae have been taken in 

 tow nets from February to March in the Baltic, 

 and from March to May in the Gulf of Maine. 



The eggs of this species have not been seen, but 

 they probably sink and stick together like those 

 of the rock eel. Apparently the larvae are of 

 considerable size at hatching, for the smallest we 

 have taken (the smallest on record) were about 

 11 mm. long, though they still lacked any trace of 

 the dorsal- and anal-fin rays. Snake blenny 

 larvae are very slender, resembling the correspond- 

 ing stages of the rock eel and of the launce in 

 general appearance, but they are distinguishable 

 from both of these by the fact that the vent is 

 situated considerably in front of the midlength of 

 the trunk. There is no danger of confusing them 

 with the young of the herring, the only other 

 very slender pelagic fish larva (besides rock eel 

 and launce) that is apt to be found in any numbers 

 in the Gulf of Maine in spring, for the tail of the 

 herring is forked from a very early stage and its 

 vent is situated much farther back than that of 

 the blenny (p. 91). Another distinctive feature 

 of the snake blenny larvae is the presence of a 

 large black pigment dot at the base of each 

 pectoral fin, and of a double row of 6 to 9 black 

 dots along the dorsal surface of the intestine with 

 several about the vent, which are very conspicuous 

 by contrast with the colorless body. Our largest 

 pelagic larva (41 mm. long) showed most of the 

 characters of the adult , although it was transparent 



and had the arrangement of pigment characteristic 

 of the earlier larval stages. 



General range. — Arctic and northern Atlantic 

 Ocean; south to Scotland, the Baltic, and the 

 southern part of the North Sea in the eastern side; 

 to the offing of southern New England in the 

 western side. 



Occurrence in the Gvlj oj Maine. — It is probable 

 that this northern fish occurs in small numbers 

 around the coastline of the Gulf at some little 

 depth. Thus Hunstman reports it from St. Mary 

 Bay, Nova Scotia, in August and September; from 

 Passamaquoddy Bay from April to August; and 

 in the open waters of the Bay of Fundy from 

 January on. It was recorded off Eastport in 

 1872; Albatross II trawled one specimen (about 

 12 inches long) 3 miles south of Great Duck 

 Island, near Mount Desert, Maine, in 28 to 33 

 fathoms, April 1927; two others (8 and 8% inches 

 long) 13 miles east of Boone Island, in 88 fathoms 

 in August 1928; one off the Isles of Shoals at 72-78 

 fathoms in August 1926; one at 42 fathoms on the 

 eastern slope of Stellwagen Bank, about 17 miles 

 off Cape Ann in July 1931. And Goode and 

 Bean 68 described it long ago as a common resident 

 in the deeper parts of Massachusetts Bay. 



Our tow nettings, also, of 1920 yielded its 

 drifting larvae off Seguin Island; near Cape 

 Elizabeth; over Platts Bank; near the Isles of 

 Shoals; off Ipswich Bay; off Cape Ann; off Boston 

 Harbor; and in the southwest basin of the Gulf 

 off Cape Cod during March, April, and May — 

 evidence that it breeds successfully throughout 

 the southern part of its range. While it has not 

 been reported on Browns or Georges banks, it is 

 to be expected there. 



It has never been reported from the banks along 

 the outer coast of Nova Scotia, so far as we know. 

 But it is so slender and active a fish that it can 

 easily pass through the meshes of any of the nets 

 that are used in our Gulf by commercial fisher- 

 men, hence is not likely to be brought in unless 

 it is sought for especially. And the experimental 

 trawlings by the Newfoundland Fishery Research 

 Laboratory did take it at several stations on the 

 Newfoundland Banks, as well as in the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, and also off the southeastern coast 

 of Labrador, while it has long been known from 



•' Goode and Bean, Bull. Essex Inst., vol. 11, 1879, p. 10. 



'• Bull. Essex Inst., vol. 11, 1879, p. 10. 



