20 FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



To the author's knowledge, the smallest striped bass that have ever been taken 

 in their natural habitat were seined along the shore of Albemarle Sound from Mackeys 

 to Rea's Beach, N. C, on May 11, 1938. Since the first spawning fish were taken 

 on April 11 in this year at Weldon, it is likely that these individuals were not more 

 than 1 month old. A length-frequency curve of the 85 juveniles taken at this time is 

 shown in figure 14, and it will be seen that they ranged in size from 1.9-3.1 cm., the 

 peak falling at 2.7 cm. The growth of the striped bass from this age on is further 

 discussed in a later section. 



In general, then, it may be said that all the evidence points to the fact that the 

 striped bass is anadromous, spawning in the spring of the year, the exact time prob- 

 ably depending on temperature and latitude. It is not definitely established, however, 

 how high a salinity the eggs and larvae of bass will tolerate. Considering the wide 

 variation in the type of river in which bass are known to reproduce, it does not seem 

 unlikely that spawning may at times take place successfully in areas where the water 

 is at least strongly brackish and perhaps even strongly saline. Worth (loc. cit.) first 

 noticed that in raising artificially fertilized eggs of striped bass, an apparatus similar to 

 MacDonald jars — in which the eggs are kept in a strong circulation of water — was 

 necessary in order to get a high percentage of normal development. It would seem, 

 therefore, that a fairly strong current is probably essential for the development of the 

 eggs, but that this may be either tidal, such as that in the Parker River, Mass., or 

 mainly fresh water, as in the Roanoke River. Some possible evidence that spawning 

 does not necessarily always take place in waters of extremely low salinity is provided 

 by the irregular and inconstant manifestation of what appear to be distinct spawning 

 marks on the scales of mature striped bass (see p. 24), for it is generally assumed that 

 such marks are only found on fish that enter fresh water. It would be logical to expect 

 that if all striped bass entered fresh water for spawning purposes, spawning marks on 

 the scales would be more common than they actually are. Such spawning marks are, 

 of course, particularly well-known on scales from salmon (Sahno solar), which do not 

 feed to any great extent during their sojourn in fresh water for spawning purposes, 

 and whose scales are probably partially resorbed during this period, thus forming the 

 characteristic spawning mark. It should be pointed out, however, that striped bass 

 undoubtedly do not stop feeding to the same extent or for a similar length of time 

 during spawning. 



SEX AND AGE AT MATURITY 



It is impracticable to get large quantities of striped bass for sex determinations 

 and stomach-content analyses anywhere along the Atlantic coast. This is so because 

 this fish is almost universally shipped to market, and frequently even sold to the 

 individual customers, without being cleaned; hence it was not possible to examine the 

 body cavities in large numbers in the wholesale markets. Since there is no valid 

 method of determining sex without inspecting the gonads, the collection of quanti- 

 tative data on this phase of the work was necessarily limited to the study of fish 

 caught on rod and line by sportsmen and cleaned by the author, to a number of small 

 random samplings of bass that were seined during tagging operations, and to a few 

 fish that were examined on different markets as they were being sold. 



A total of 676 striped bass caught in northern waters (Long Island and New 

 England) from April to November 1936 and 1937 were examined for sex. These 

 fish ranged in size from 25 to over 110 cm., and in age from 2 years old to over 12 

 years old. Of these 676 fish, only 9.7 percent were males. One hundred and eighty- 

 three of them were 3 years old or more, and only 4.4 percent of these were males. No 

 males above 4 years old have been found hi northern waters. The remaining 493 

 fish examined were 2-year-olds, 11.8 percent of which were males. Although the 

 number of fish examined for sex is too small to permit any final conclusions, there is 

 little doubt that the number of males in northern waters seldom reaches much over 

 10 percent of the entire population. And the evidence so far is that the percentage 

 of males is greatest among the 2-year-olds — that age at which this species first under- 

 takes the migration from further south (see p. 44), and appears in large quantities 

 in northern waters; the percentage of males apparently decreases in the age cate- 

 gories above the 2-year-olds. 



