FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 317 



Size. — This is a small species, probably growing to a maximum length of 

 about 8 inches, this being the largest size recorded for its European representa- 

 tive. 75 



General range. — It is impossible as yet to state the geographic limits of this 

 species. Sculpins of this general type are circumpolar, ranging south to Cape 

 Cod along the American coast and to the Baltic on the European side of the 

 Atlantic in rather deep water. They show a tendency to split up into local races, 

 however, the constancy of which is yet to be tested by a study of large series. 

 Newfoundland specimens, for example, differ sufficiently from typical Triglops 

 ommatistius in the arrangement and number of folds of skin along the sides for 

 Gilbert to have dignified them with a separate name (as the subspecies terrxnovse) ; 

 and both these American forms are distinguished from the east Greenland and 

 European mailed sculpins by the presence of the eyespot on the first dorsal fin 

 (which the latter lack), and by slightly fewer fin rays. We do not feel convinced, 

 however, that all these forms, together with the Bering Sea form (Triglops beanii), 

 will not finally prove to be local varieties of a single wide-ranging species. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This cold-water fish must be rare in the 

 Gulf, for the only specimens so far definitely recorded from there are from the 

 neighborhood of St. Andrews in the Bay of Fundy, taken in 15 fathoms in April 

 and July, 1919 (reported by Huntsman) ; a few from Massachusetts Bay and from 

 off Kace Point, Cape Cod (in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural 

 History); 11 others now in the United States National Museum from Gloucester, 

 Cape Cod, and Georges Bank; and two which we ourselves trawled on the Grampus 

 in July, 1912, one of them off Gloucester and the other off Boston Harbor, at 33 

 and 27 fathoms, respectively. The fact that Gilbert found differences between 

 the Gulf of Maine and Newfoundland specimens, and others from Chebucto Head 

 (Nova Scotia) and from Georges Bank intermediate between them, suggests that 

 the mailed sculpin is a permanent resident of the inner parts of the Gulf, rather 

 than that it appears there only as an occasional stray past Cape Sable from the 

 east and north. 



Habits. — Little is known of its habits beyond the bare fact that it is a bottom 

 fish like other sculpins. If it breeds at all this side of Cape Sable it probably 

 spawns in midsummer, Cox 76 having reported a ripe female at Cape Breton in 

 July. The eggs of the latter were pinkish, 2 mm. in diameter, with many oil 

 globules. Presumably the eggs sink like those of other sculpins. The European 

 mailed sculpin is known to eat worms and various small crustaceans and probably 

 the diet of the American form is the same. 



" Collett. Den Norske Nordhaus-Expedition, 1876-78, Bind 3, Zoologi, Fiske, 1880, p. 38. Christiania. 

 » Contributions to Canadian Biology, 1913-1920 (1921), p. 111. Ottawa. 



