FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 375 



When first hatched the larvae lie on bottom, resting on the yolk like young 

 trout or salmon, becoming more active as the yolk is absorbed; but it is not until 

 the latter is considerably reduced in size (that is, until several weeks after hatching) 

 that they swim much, and they do no more than dart upward for a few inches and 

 then settle back again until a month or more old. Thus the wolffish spends the early 

 part of its development period close to bottom instead of drifting at the mercy 

 of tide and current, as do all the fishes that produce buoyant eggs. While some of 

 the older larvae and young fry adopt a pelagic habit for a time after the yolk is 

 absorbed (for we took some 20 specimens of various lengths from 21 to 44 mm., 

 in tow nets during March and April, 1920), it seems that they seldom rise to the 

 uppermost water layers, for only two of the eight hauls were at the surface, the others 

 being at depths of 30 to 60 fathoms; and as fry no larger than this have been trawled 

 on bottom in European waters, some of them may never leave the ground at all. 

 It follows, then, that the wolffish probably is not subject to the long involuntary 

 migrations carried out by most members of the cod and flatfish tribes, but that it 

 passes through its entire larval stage near where it is hatched, and hence that the 

 localities where the young are taken are evidence of local spawning. On this basis 

 it seems that the wolffish breeds generally in the eastern as well as in the western 

 part of the Gulf, for we have taken its larvae in the North Channel, near Seal 

 Island (Nova Scotia), on and off the slope of German Bank, off Lurcher Shoal, 

 in the deep off Machias (Maine), on Jeffrey Bank (off Penobscot Bay), and in 

 Massachusetts Bay a few miles off Gloucester. The brevity of the pelagic stage also 

 implies that it is on local reproduction that the stock depends for its maintenance 

 in any given locality. 



In Scottish waters wolffish fry, no doubt hatched the preceding autumn, have 

 been taken as long as 5 to 6 inches in July, and 7 to 8 inches in August, pointing 

 to a rapid rate of growth for the first summer. Nothing is known of the later 

 growth. 



Commercial importance. — Although so repellant in appearance that the market 

 demand for it is of comparatively recent growth, the wolf is an excellent table fish, 

 selling readily as "catfish" or as "ocean whitefish." 



143. Spotted wolffish (AnarhicJias minor Olafsen) 

 Spotted catfish 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 2446. 



Description. — This species closely resembles the common wolffish in its general 

 form and in the arrangement of its fins, the chief difference between the two being 

 that while the central ("vomerine") band of teeth on the roof of the mouth is 

 shorter than the band on either side (" palatine") in the common wolffish, these bands 

 are of about equal length in the spotted wolffish, while its teeth are described (we 

 have never seen it) as red, not white. Furthermore the dorsal fin is continuous with 

 the caudal, although with its last 3 to 6 spines much shorter than those further 

 forward, whereas the two fins are quite separate in the common wolf. Color, 



