FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 171 



65. Two-spincd stickleback (Gasterosteus bispinosus Walbaum) 3 

 Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900 (Gasterosteus gladiunculus), p. 2836. 



Description. — This stickleback is said to differ from the three-spined stickleback 

 in having a deeper body, fewer rays (10 dorsal and 8 anal), fewer dermal plates 

 (5 or 6 as against 28 to 33), unkeeled caudal peduncle, and a strong cusp at the base 

 of the ventral spine both above and below. Dr. W. C. Kendall informs us that 

 careful examination of large series has convinced him that this is actually a distinct 

 species and not a race of the extremely variable three-spined stickleback, although 

 he saw one specimen apparently intermediate between the two. 



Color. — In life grass-green, mottled and finely punctated with black on the top 

 of the head and back; sides of head and body golden with dark blotches; breast 

 silvery; ventrals scarlet. 4 



General range. — Newfoundland to New York. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Sticklebacks of this type are common in 

 company with the three-spined in Passamaquoddy and St. Mary Bays 5 and in 

 the Bay of Fundy. They may be expected anywhere on the Maine coast, being 

 recorded at Winter Harbor, off Monhegan Island, off Seguin Island, from Casco 

 Bay and its tributaries in both salt and brackish water, and from Kittery. It has 

 also been taken at Swampseott, in Massachusetts Bay, and it is fairly common in 

 summer at Woods Hole. To these coastwise localities we have added tow-net 

 captures off Cape Porpoise, on Platts Bank, in the Western Basin, and on German 

 Bank. 



Habits. — So far as known its mode of life is the same as that of the three-spined 

 species, and sticklebacks of this type have been described as building nests with 

 bits of straw on sandy bottom in New York waters, 6 but so often have the two species 

 or races been confused that nothing more definite can be written of its habits. 



66. Four-spined stickleback (Apeltes quadracus Mitchill) 

 Bloody stickleback 



Jordan and Evermann, 1S96-1900, p. 752. 



Description. — The four-spined stickleback lacks dermal plates in its scaleless 

 skin, but a bony ridge on each side of the abdomen makes the fish triangular in cross 

 section, with flat belly and sharp back, and gives it an aspect very different from the 

 other sticklebacks. In side view it is fusiform, tapering to the rather pointed nose 

 and to the slim caudal peduncle. There are three free dorsal spines standing close one 

 behind the other, inclining alternately to one or the other side, and a fourth attached 

 to the dorsal fin by the fin membrane. The anal fin is similarly preceded by an 

 attached spine, and each ventral fin is represented by a stouter curved spine succeeded 



3 This is the Gasterosteus biaculeatus of Cuvier and Valenciennes; wheailandi of Putnam; gladiunculus of Kendall, but not 

 the Q. bispinosus of Jordan and Evermann, which is a variety of 0. aculeatus. 

 ' Kendall, 1896, p. 624. 

 » Huntsman, 1922a, p. 13. 

 • See Bean, 1903. 



