FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 63 



dorsal fins are separated by a definite space in the adult but are confluent in the 

 young. 



Size. — Tliis skate grows to 2)4 feet in length, or slightly larger; males as small 

 as 26 inches, nearly mature, have been found. Specimens 21 to 22 inches long are 

 15 to 16 inches wide. 



Color. — Brown above, either uniform or slightly clouded with lighter and 

 darker. Young ones are spotted with darker brown, but adults ordinarily lack 

 these spots. Garman (1913, p. 34) mentions a partial albino, white above with a 

 few reddish-brown and brown spots. 



General range. — The prickly skate is a northern cold-water fish, its range 

 hardly extending west or south of Cape Cod, for it appears but rarely and at long 

 intervals at Woods Hole, nor is it known south of this. How far north it ranges 

 is yet to be determined. It is plentiful along the east coast of Nova Scotia and in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence where it lives indifferently on the ice-cold banks and in 

 the warmer water in the bottom of the deep channels, but it has not been recorded 

 from Labrador north of the Straits of Belle Isle nor so far as we can learn from the 

 eastern shores of Newfoundland. In north European waters it is represented by 

 an extremely closely allied if not identical form {Raja radiata), which occurs from 

 the Bay of Biscay in the south to Greenland, Spitzbergen, and the White Sea in the 

 north. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The prickly skate is usually thought to be 

 less common on our coast than either of the two species just mentioned, and it is 

 certainly rare in very shallow water within our limits; but it is frequently taken on 

 the New Brunswick side of the Bay of Fundy in depths of 10 fathoms or deeper, 

 in 20 to 30 fathoms in St. Mary Bay (Nova Scotia)," while we ourselves trawled 

 it (13 specimens) in 22 and 27 fathoms on sandy bottom in Ipswich Bay in July, 

 1913. Since it has also been recorded from Casco Bay, Ipswich Bay, Gloucester, 

 Salem, Nahant, and Provincetown, it evidently occurs generally all along the 

 shores of the Gulf in moderate depths. Judging from the considerable depths to 

 which its European relative descends — it has been trawled down to 450 fathoms — 

 skates caught in the deeper parts of the Gulf are more likely to belong to this 

 than to either of the preceding species, and it may be the prevalent skate on the 

 offshore banks. It has not been recorded below about 200 fathoms off our coasts. 



Habits. — Nothing is recorded of its habits in the Gulf, nor, so far as we can 

 learn, have its eggs or young ever been definitely recognized there, but probably 

 what is known of the spawning habits of its European representative applies equally 

 here, briefly, that it comes up from deeper water into shoal water in spring to 

 spawn there during the summer, retreating once more to greater depths in winter; 

 that the egg case measures about 2 1 / 2 by l 3 / s inches (exclusive of its tendrils) ; and 

 that the frj r remain near land during their first winter. 



Food. — The prickly skate, like most of its relatives, feeds indiscriminately on 

 small fish, amphipods, worms, etc. Such, at least, is true of the European form. 

 So far as we can learn no stomachs have been examined on this side of the Atlantic. 



M According to Huntsman (1922a). 

 102274— 25f 5 



