186 BULLETIN OF THE BUBEATJ OF FISHEEIES 



The sand eel plays a very important role in the economy of northern seas as 

 food for larger animals. Finback whales devour them greedily when they find 

 them in abundance. Such an occasion occurred in Cape Cod Bay in June, 1880, 

 when launce appeared in swarms early in the month followed by finbacks a few days 

 later. Porpoises, too, and sundry predaceous fish such as cod, haddock, halibut, 

 silver hake, sahnon, mackerel, and bluefish find them a staple article of food. 

 When fleeing from their pursuers, especially from the silver hake, which does not 

 hesitate to follow right up on the sand, they often strand in such multitudes as to 

 cover the flats with a sheet of silver. 



Sand eels' noses are so sharp that when swallowed by cod, and perhaps by other 

 fish, they sometimes work right through the stomachs and into the body cavities of 

 their captors, to become encysted in the body wall, but this must be an exceptional 

 event for none of the fishermen of whom we have inquired have seen it, nor have we. 



Breeding habits. — So far as we can learn, the eggs of the American sand eel have 

 not been seen, 25 nor has its spawning been observed. In the case of the European 

 form {tobianus) ripe specimens, both male and female, have been taken throughout 

 the year, a phenomenon that has given rise to widely differing views as to its spawning 

 season. The chief production of eggs of the latter, however, at least in the southern 

 part of the North Sea, takes place in autumn and early winter as Ehrenbaum 2 " 

 demonstrated, both by dredging them in large numbers and by the fact that its 

 larvae are extremely abundant there from January to March, but have seldom been 

 taken at other seasons. 



Judging from the evidence afforded by the occurrence of larva?, the season 

 is about the same for the American form as for the European, as might be expected. 

 Thus its eggs must begin hatching in midwinter, if not earlier, at Woods Hole, for 

 fry are taken there in March. Probably this applies equally to the western part of 

 Georges Bank, where the Albatross towed a number of larvse of from 11 to 17 mm. 

 on February 22, 1920. The season is progressively later to the northward, however, 

 for we have taken larva? but a few days old (7 to S mm. long) , with the yolk still 

 showing, off Newburyport, Mass., on March 4, 1921, and the Canadian Fisheries 

 Expedition of 1915 obtained an abundance of but slightly older stages (7 to 15 mm.) 

 off the southeast coast of Nova Scotia in May. Launce were formerly thought to 

 spawn on sandy beaches above low- water mark while burrowing in the sand, but 

 their eggs have never been found in such situations, and Ehrenbaum proved, by 

 dredging them in large numbers, that those of the European species, Ammodytes 

 tobianus, are actually deposited in depths of 10 fathoms or so on sandy bottom where 

 they stick fast to the grains of sand. His experience suggests that they resort to 

 very definite grounds for spawning, all of which probably applies as well to the 

 American as to the European form. 



" Hmd (Fishery Commission, Halifax, 1S77, part 2, p. 7) describes the launce in the Gulf of St Lawrence as "depositing theii 

 large reddish-colored ova on the sand between high and low water." This account, however, is widely at variance with the 

 spawning habits of their European representative (Ammodytes tobianus) and with the seasonal occurrence of their larvse (p. 180), 

 and was probably borrowed from the larger European sand eel (Ammodytes Janceolatus) . 



" Wissensehaftliche Meeresuntersuchungen, Helgoland, Neue Folge, Band 6, 1904, p. 1S4. 



