FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 61 



blunter than a right angle, bulging opposite the eyes, and the tip of the snout is 

 rounded. The teeth are in from SO to 1 10 rows on a jaw instead of in only about 50 

 rows, as in erinacea, and they are sharper in males than in females. The backs of both 

 sexes are rough, with sharp spines on the head, around the eyes, along the anterior 

 margins of the pectorals, over the shoulders, and on the sides of the tail, but the midline 

 of the back behind the shoulders is free of spines, at least in adults. Males have 

 rows of retractile hooks on the outer parts of the pectorals. The two dorsal fins 

 are close together; the outer corners of the pectorals are bluntly angular; the claspers 

 in males reach about halfway back along the tail, which occupies about half the 

 total length of the fish. 



Size. — This skate grows to about 3 feet in length, commonly from 30 to 34 

 inches; specimens 32 inches in length are about 21 inches wide. 



Color. — Light brown above with round darker brown spots. As a rule there 

 is a large white eye spot with black center near the posterior angle of the pectoral 

 fin, and often two smaller ones close to the latter. When these eye spots are 

 present they serve to identify this skate at a glance; sometimes, however, they 

 are lacking, in which case half-grown specimens so closely resemble the little skate 

 that recourse must be had to the number of teeth to tell one from the other. There 

 is a translucent or white area on each side of the snout in front of the eyes and the 

 lower surface is white. 



General range. — Atlantic coast of North America from New York northward 

 to the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where it is common. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This, the second in size of our skates, occurs 

 commonly all around the Gulf of Maine from Nova Scotia to Cape Cod. There 

 are many locality records from the Bay of Fundy as well as from the coasts of 

 Maine and Massachusetts, and it probably makes" up a large proportion of the skate 

 population on Georges Bank. It is very plentiful in Massachusetts Bay, but so 

 closely does a two-thirds grown big skate resemble the adult little skate (p. 58) 

 that it is often impossible to tell to which species reports refer. It is said to come 

 up into shoal water on sandy beaches, but we have no first-hand information to 

 offer on this point, and at Woods Hole it is never found in water shoaler than 5 to 6 

 fathoms. South of Cape Cod the name "winter skate" is appropriate enough, 

 for it is only during the cold season that it is common about Woods Hole. Similarly, 

 it is said to be taken in larger numbers in winter than in summer in the Massachu- 

 setts Bay region, though we can not verify this. However, this is distinctly a mis- 

 nomer in the northern part of the Gulf of Maine, for not only is it abundant in 

 shoal water in the Bay of Fundy (e. g., Passamaquoddy Bay) from May to Novem- 

 ber, but to judge from temperature this probably applies to the whole coast line 

 east of Cape Elizabeth. 



Spotted skates feed on the same diet as do little skates. Rock crabs and squid 

 are their chief diet, but they also take annelids, amphipods, shrimps, and razor 

 clams, and they prey upon whatever small fish are available, the list at Woods 

 Hole including smaller skates, eels, herring, alewives, bluebacks, menhaden, smelt, 

 launce, chub mackerel, butterfish, cunners, scidpins, silver hake, tomcod, and hake 



sl From Vinal Edwards' and Linton's notes. 



51 



