422 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHEBIES 



The fact that cod run much larger in the Gulf of Maine than in either the North 

 Sea or the Norwegian Sea, and that the monsters of 75 pounds and heavier that are 

 brought in every year from our coastal waters are unusual on the other side of the 

 Atlantic, tends to corroborate Wodehouse's age estimates, but the desirability of 

 further investigation along this line is self-evident. Should it finally prove that it 

 is characteristic of Gulf of Maine fish to grow faster than European the inference is 

 obvious — our waters provide a more favorable environment, probably for food. 



Judging from the table the general run of mature shore cod caught in the Gulf 

 of Maine (5 to 20 pounds) are 3 to 6 years old, but whether the very large fish 

 occasionally caught have grown exceptionally rapidly or are many years old, remains 

 to be learned. 



The smallest ripe male recorded for American waters weighed about S}4 pounds; 

 female 4 pounds 89 — that is, were in their fourth winter — and probably all cod mature 

 in their fifth year. 



Breeding habits. — Thanks to Earll's painstaking studies and to the large scale 

 on which the Bureau of Fisheries has subsequently collected and hatched cod eggs 

 at the Gloucester and Woods Hole hatcheries, the spawning season and the major 

 spawning grounds of the cod are fairly well established for the coastal waters between 

 Nantucket Shoals and the Bay of Fundy. 



It has long been known that while cod spawn chiefly in winter, both in American 

 and in European waters, the breeding season lasts much longer and is less definitely 

 limited at either end for this species than for the haddock or pollock, and experience 

 has shown that great local differences obtain in the season when the production of 

 eggs is most active even within the comparatively small area now under discussion. 

 For example, W. H. Thomas, superintendent of the Woods Hole station, informs 

 us that the brood fish taken off Nantucket and brought in to the Woods Hole pool 

 spawn there from about the first of December until well into February and occa- 

 sionally as late as March, but with the major production usually from December 20 

 to January 7, and he writes that cod "spawn from as early as November 1 until 

 April in the waters off Nantucket; mostly, however, from about January 15 until 

 mid-February." The season is about the same as this off Plymouth in Massachu- 

 setts Bay, this being a ground long utilized as a collecting field for the hatcheries, 

 and where, according to data furnished by C. G. Corliss, superintendent of the 

 Gloucester hatchery, ripe cod of both sexes are common from November until as 

 late as April. On the north side of Cape Ann, however, only 50 miles distant, ripe 

 fish seldom appear in any numbers until January and some years not until Feb- 

 ruary, though odd ones may be expected from November on. Earll, for example, 

 found that not one female in ten had commenced to throw her eggs by the latter 

 month in Ipswich Bay, though spawning was then at its height in Massachusetts 

 Bay, nor were as many as 50 per cent of the Ipswich Bay fish ripe before mid-March. 

 Commencing to spawn later there and near Cape Ann than off Plymouth, they 

 also continue to do so considerably later — that is, until the end of April or even 



<• Earll, 1880 



