2 FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



The North Carolina State Department of Conservation and Development also con- 

 tributed to the striped bass investigation in the fall of 1937, and thus made it possible 

 to accumulate valuable information from the Albemarle Sound region in November 

 1937 and March, April, and May, 1938. 



The author has published a preliminary account of the results of the striped 

 bass investigation through December 1936 (Merriman, 1937a). A review covering 

 much of the same material has also appeared in the Transactions of the Second North 

 American Wildlife Conference (Merriman, 1937b), and a paper given at the New 

 England Game Conference on February 12, 1938, and the Third North American 

 Wildlife Conference on February 14, 1938, was published later (Merriman, 1938). 

 Several progress reports submitted to the Connecticut State Board of Fisheries and 

 Game have been mimeographed and sent out in limited numbers. This bulletin, 

 therefore, incorporates some previously published material as well as the main 

 accomplishments of the investigation from its inception to its conclusion. 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 



Since the author was a graduate student in the Department of Zoology at Yale 

 University during the whole course of this investigation, the facilities of the Osborn 

 Zoological Laboratory were always at his disposal. He especially wishes to acknowl- 

 edge the help and advice of Prof. A. E. Parr, Director of the Peabody Museum. 

 He is also indebted to Mr. Marshall B. Bishop of the Peabody Museum for his excellent 

 work in the field in North Carolina in the spring of 1938, to Mr. Donald L. Pitcher 

 of the Bingham Oceanographic Laboratory, and to many members of the Osborn 

 Zoological Laboratory and the Peabody Museum for then- assistance at various 

 times. Furthermore, the investigation owes much of its progress to Mr. Otto J. 

 Scheer, of New York, who made it possible to tag striped bass at Montauk, L. I., 

 N. Y., in the spring and fall of 1937, to Mr. J. D. Chalk, Commissioner of Game and 

 Inland Fisheries in North Carolina, to Mr. David A. Aylward and Mr. Oliver H. P. 

 Rodman of the Massachusetts Fish and Game Association, and to a number of 

 commercial fishermen and sport fishermen's clubs. 



It is also a pleasure to acknowledge the assistance of Mr. Earl E. Sisson, who was 

 employed by the Connecticut State Board of Fisheries and Game to aid in the seining 

 and tagging of striped bass. And finally, the writer wishes to express his sincere 

 thanks to his wife, who has done most of the recording in the field and has given her 

 support in every possible way. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE STRIPED BASS 



During the past few years the striped bass has been called Roccus saxatilis and 

 Roccus lineatus. These two specific names have been used about equally in the liter- 

 ature, and with more or less indiscrimination. Jordan, Evermann, and Clark (1930) 



say: 



This species is usually called Roccus lineatus after Sciaena lineata Bloch (Auslandische Fische, 

 VI, 1792, 02); but it cannot be the same. The form, serrae of the preopercle, and the stout spines 

 of the fin, as well as the asserted locality 'Mediterranean' indicate that the species concerned is 

 Dicentrarchus lupus of Europe. The only resemblance to Roccus is found in the striped color; but 

 Bloch says that the stripes on the sides are yellow. 



A glance at Block's (loc. cit.) illustration substantiates this statement. The name 

 Roccus saxatilis (Walbaum) therefore appears to be the more valid, and lately it 

 has come into more widely accepted usage. 



Two common names are regularly applied to this species. North of New Jersey 

 "striped bass" is almost universally used, while to the south "rock" or "rockfish" is 

 the generally accepted terminology. Among other names that have been applied in 

 the past, but are seldom if ever heard now, are "green-heads", "squid-hounds" (Goode, 

 1884), and "missuckeke-kequock" (Jordan, Evermann, and Clark, loc. cit.). 



The striped bass, Roccus saxatilis, belongs to the family Serranidae, of the order 

 Percomorphi. It has been well described in most of the standard ichthyological ref- 

 erences for both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts (e. g., Hildebrand and Schroeder, 



