172 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



by about two slender rays. The dorsal fin stands above the anal as in the nine- 

 spined species, but both these fins taper less from front to rear, and the caudal is 

 relatively longer and narrower than in any of our other sticklebacks. 



Color. — Brownish olive or greenish brown above with dark mottlings that 

 alternate below the lateral line with the silvery white of the belly. The fin membrane 

 of the ventrals is red. Males are much darker than females. 



Size. — One and one-half to two and one-half inches long. 



General range. — An American fish, known along the coast from New Bruns- 

 wick and Nova Scotia to Virginia; at home both in salt and in brackish water and 

 running up into fresh water. 



Fig. 77— Adult 





Fig. 78.— Egg Fig. 79.— Larva, newly hatched, 4.3 millimeters 



FOUR-SPINED STICKLEBACK (Apeltes quadrants) 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This stickleback is common all around the 

 shores of the Gulf on the Nova Scotian as well as the New England side. We have 

 taken it at Yarmouth, Huntsman (1922a, p. 13) records it from St. Mary Bay 

 and along the New Brunswick shore, well within the Bay of Fundy (Maine has 

 usually been given as its northern limit), and there are many locality records for 

 the coasts of Maine and Massachusetts. It is so much more closely restricted to 

 estuarine situations than is its three-spined relative (p. 168) that we have never 

 taken it in our tow nets nor do we find a single record of it in the open sea, but it is 

 a common little fish in the salt marshes of northern New England, where it consorts 

 with other sticklebacks and with mummichogs. Like the three-spined stickleback 

 it often runs up into fresh water, though it is primarily a salt and brackish water 

 fish and is never found far in from the coast. On the south shore of New England 



