234 BULLETIN OP THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



89. Hardtail (Caranx crysos Mitchill) 

 Runner; Yellow mackerel 

 Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 921. 



Description. — The hardtail closely resembles the crevalle in the relative sizes 

 and arrangement of its fins, in its deeply-forked tail, its slender caudal peduncle, 

 and in the row of bony shields along the posterior half of its lateral line; but it is 

 a more slender fish (about three and one-fourth instead of only two and one-half 

 times as long as deep), the dorsal profile of its head is not so convex, there are no 

 canine teeth, and the shields are more numerous (about 45 in hardtail and only 

 about 30 in crevalle). Furthermore, its breast is wholly scaly instead of mostly 

 naked, and the pectoral fin spot, characteristic of the crevaUe, is wanting in the 

 hardtail. 





x;;_ 



Fio. 109.— Hardtail ( Carani crysos) 



Color. — Olive green above; golden to silvery below; a black spot on the gill 

 cover near its margin but none on the pectoral fin. Young fry are more or less barred 

 on the sides, but these bars disappear with growth. 



Size. — Maximum weight about 3 pounds. Northern examples are seldom 

 more than a foot long. 



General range. — Atlantic coast of America, Brazil to Cape Cod, and represented 

 by a closely allied species in the Pacific. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The fact that this fish has been reported 

 from Provincetown, in Boston Harbor, off Gloucester, 98 in Ipswich Bay," and from 

 Nova Scotian waters, shows that it is more apt to round Cape Cod than is the 

 crevalle, but so rare a stray is it in the Gulf that none of the local fishermen with 

 whom we have talked know it there. Young fish are not rare about Woods Hole 

 and thence westward from July until November. 



9i One netted Sept. 18, 1878. 



M Specimen now in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History. 



