326 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



white with dark gray blotches, rendering it almost invisible. The first dorsal fin 

 is pale sooty with pale and dark mottlings or spots, the second dorsal is paler olive 

 with three irregular oblique dark crossbands, and the caudal is pale gray and the 

 pectorals yellowish, both with 4 to 6 rather narrow but distinct dark crossbands. 

 The anal is pale yellowish with dark mottlings. There is often an obscure yellowish 

 band along the lower sides marking the transition from the dark upper parts to the 

 pure white belly. 



Size. — This is a smaller fish than the shorthorn sculpin, growing to a maximum 

 length of about 18 inches but rarely more than 10 to 14 inches long. 



General range. — East coast of North America from Labrador to Virginia. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This is the commonest local sculpin, to be 

 caught anywhere and everywhere along the entire coast fine of the Gulf of Maine. 

 We dare venture there is not a bay, harbor, estuary, or a fishing station from Cape 

 Sable to Cape Cod where it is not to be found. Not only is it more plentiful in 

 most places than is its short-horned relative, but it occupies a wider depth zone, 

 being very abundant on the one hand in many shoal harbors, where it comes up 

 on the flats at high tide to leave them at low, while on the other it is caught in 

 considerable numbers down to 50 fathoms or so. We have ourselves trawled it 

 at 27 to 33 fathoms in Massachusetts Bay and at 50 fathoms off Cape Elizabeth, 

 but since this is about its lowest limit (it has not been reported from the deep basin) 

 its range in the inner parts of the Gulf is restricted to a narrow peripheral zone. 

 It also occurs on Georges Bank, and while the composition of the sculpin population 

 of that region is yet to be determined, the fact that this was the only sculpin (except 

 the sea raven, which it outnumbered) that Welsh saw taken there on an otter- 

 trawling trip in June, 1912, is presumptive evidence that it is the commonest 

 member of its tribe on the bank. It is fair to assume that this apphes equally 

 to Browns Bank, where fishermen report sculpins of one sort or another as not 

 uncommon. 



Habits and food. — Plentiful and omnipresent though this fish is, little attention 

 has been paid to its life history. Everyone who has fished along the shores of the 

 Gulf is perforce more or less familiar with it, for it is a nuisance to cunner and 

 flounder fishermen, and often puzzles a "greenhorn" to unhook it when it spreads 

 all its needle-sharp spines and erects its spiny dorsal. It grunts when pulled out 

 of the water and bites any bait. 



No doubt it is as omnivorous as the shorthorn. Specimens examined by 

 Vinal Edwards at Woods Hole had fed chiefly on shrimp, crabs, and mussels, also 

 on hydroids, annelids, amphipods, sundry mollusks, ascidians, squids, and a consid- 

 erable list of fish fry, including alewives, dinners, eels, mummichogs, herring, 

 mackerel, menhaden, puffers, launce, scup, silversides. smelts, tomcod, silver hake, 

 and other sculpins. 



This sculpin is as useful a scavenger as the shorthorn and equally voracious, 

 gathering wherever there is carrion to be had about wharves, sardine factories, 

 and particularly under lobster cars, and always keeping to the bottom. Along 

 most of our coast line it is resident throughout the year in waters of moderate 

 depth, but it carries out more or less definite inshore and offshore journeys within 



