258 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



second dorsal and is of the same shape as the latter. The ventrals originate behind 

 the pectorals and each is armed with one stout spine at its anterior margin. Both 

 pectorals and ventrals are larger in comparison with the size of the fish than those 

 of the striped bass. 



Color. — The upper surface is variously olive, grayish dark green, or dark sil- 

 very gray, shading to paler olive or silvery green on the sides and to silvery white 

 on the belly. The ventral and anal fins are rose-colored at the base. The sides 

 of young specimens are marked with pale longitudinal stripes ,that fade out with 

 growth. 



Size. — White perch are occasionally as much as 15 inches long, 5 inches or more 

 deep, and 2 to 3 pounds in weight, but they average only about 8 to 10 inches and 

 1 pound or less. 



General range. — Atlantic coast of the United States from the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence and Nova Scotia to South Carolina, breeding mfresh or brackish water and 

 permanently landlocked in many fresh ponds and streams. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The white perch inhabits salt, brackish, 

 and fresh water indifferently along the shores of southern New England, but although 

 it is a familiar fish in many ponds throughout northern New England, New Bruns- 

 wick, and Nova Scotia, very few white perch are found in estuarine situations north 

 of Cape Cod, and it hardly belongs to the fish fauna of the open Gulf. Thus we 

 have not been able to satisfy ourselves of its presence in localities apparently as 

 suited to it as Duxbury Bay or the salt creeks about Cohasset or Marshfield on 

 Massachusetts Bay, and although Storer long ago described white perch as brought 

 to Boston market from the mouths of neighboring rivers and from ponds to which 

 the sea had access, it does not figure in the statistics of the shore fisheries of any 

 part of Massachusetts Bay for 1902, 1905, or 1919. It is certainly as rare along 

 the western and northern coasts of the Gulf, since none were reported from the 

 shore fisheries of Maine in 1905 or 1919, and only 400 pounds in 1902. Apparently 

 it does not occur at all in salt water in the Bay of Fundy. 



At rare intervals white perch appear locally in unusual numbers. Casco Bay 

 saw such an event in the summer of 1901 when local fishermen, not knowing the 

 fish, dubbed it ''sea bass," and no less than 1,600 pounds of white perch were taken 

 in the shore fisheries of the short coast line of New Hampshire in the year 1912. 

 With the fish so widely distributed inland, similar invasions of sheltered coastal 

 waters from fresh streams draining into them may be expected from time to time. 

 However, there is no reason to suppose that white perch were ever more regularly 

 plentiful along the coast of the Gulf of Maine than they are to-day, nor so far as we 

 can learn has one ever been seen out in the open sea far from land. 



Food. — When living in salt or brackish water the habits of the white perch are 

 much like those of the striped bass; it is similarly carnivorous, feeding on small 

 fish fry of all kinds, young squid, shrimps, crabs, and various other invertebrates, 

 as well as on the spawn of other fish, to which it is very destructive. Swarms of 

 young perch, for instance, have been seen following the alewives around the shores 

 of ponds on Marthas Vineyard, eating their spawn as it was deposited. It is a free 

 biter on almost any bait. 



