FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 247 



the precise date of their departure is not known, they probably linger in the southern 

 part of the Gulf until November, as they do about Woods Hole and off Rhode Island. 

 During the season of 1913 the first butterfish were reported on Georges Bank, June 

 5 to 8. A few were caught in October and the latest (82 fish) from November 21 

 to 27. 



Habits. — Considering how familiar and valuable this fish is, surprisingly little 

 is known of its manner of life. As a rule it travels in small bands or loose schools, 

 commonly coming close inshore into sheltered bays and estuaries — hence its frequent 

 capture in pound nets and the like — and showing so decided a preference for sandy 

 rather than rocky or muddy bottoms that in even as small an area as Duxbury 

 Bay, for example, very few are taken in such traps as are situated on muddy ground 

 while others located along the sandy beach near by yield considerable numbers. 

 General experience is to the effect that the butterfish keeps chiefly to shoal (often 

 very shoal) water during its stay, and schools are often seen close to the surface. 

 At Cohasset (on the south side of Massachusetts Bay), for instance, schools of butter- 

 fish fifty to a few hundred strong are often to be seen where the flats are covered 

 by only 4 or 5 feet of water, and although definite evidence is lacking we believe 

 butterfish seldom descend deeper than 15 to 30 fathoms during the summer, but 

 that the fish caught by the otter trawlers on Georges Bank are picked up by the 

 trawl on its way up or down — not while it is dragging on bottom. In fact, mackerel 

 fishermen often take a few butterfish there in their purse seines. Although it seems 

 well established that the butterfish actually withdraw from the Gulf when they 

 disappear at the approach of autumn, their winter home is unknown. 



Food. — The butterfish feeds on small fish, squid, Crustacea such as amphipods 

 and shrimp, annelids, etc., and ctenophores have been found in butterfish stomachs 

 at Woods Hole, though these watery objects are not a regular item in its diet. 



Breeding habits. — Butterfish begin spawning in the Gulf of Maine soon after 

 their arrival in June. The height of the reproductive season is in July and their 

 eggs have been taken throughout August. Observations made at Woods Hole 

 suggest that butterfish do not spawn close inshore but some few miles out at sea, 

 returning to the coastwise waters when spent. 12 Judging from the occurrence of 

 the adult butterfish it would not be surprising to find its eggs anywhere off the 

 New England and western Nova Scotian coasts or on the Scotian side of the Bay 

 of Fundy, Huntsman having found large spawning individuals in St. Mary Bay 

 in July, and we have actually taken them in our tow nets at several stations in 

 Massachusetts Bay and off Cape Cod. But in spite of the considerable number 

 of butterfish eggs produced in the Gulf of Maine, we doubt whether the latter is a 

 favorable nursery for this fish, for we have taken its larva? onty twice in the Gulf 

 of Maine — off Cape Cod on August 16 and on Georges Bank on July 23, 1916, a 

 total of only 3 specimens, 5 to 30 mm. long — although we have made hundreds of 

 hauls widely distributed inshore as well as offshore at the season when they might 

 be expected. Young butterfish have never been reported from the Bay of Fundy, 

 but by contrast butterfish fry are very plentiful along the shores of southern New 

 England. 



" Kuntz and Radcliffe, 1918, p. 112. 



