FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 441 



10, 1915, proves that some spawn on the Nova Scotian side of the bay near its 

 entrance, and according to general report a few do so on the coastal banks along 

 the western shores of Nova Scotia southward to Cape Sable/while we have taken a 

 few cod or haddock eggs on German Bank in our tow nets in May. We can offer 

 no evidence as to whether Platts Bank serves as a breeding ground, for no pigment 

 had yet appeared in the few eggs taken there April 10, 1920, hence they might as 

 well have been cod as haddock. 



Our own observations, added to the experience of the spawn takers of the 

 bureau and of local fishermen generally, convince us that haddock, like cod, seek defi- 

 nite breeding grounds, and do not spawn anywhere and everywhere within the depth 

 zone and over the types of bottom which they inhabit, as might be expected 

 to be the case in a region where the depths are as irregular, the bottom as broken 

 and various in texture, and the salinity and temperature varying as widely from 

 place to place as in the Gulf of Maine. Where the slopes are gradual, the bottom 

 smooth, and the physical state of the water constant over large areas, as they are 

 over most of the North Sea, it may be as hopeless to delimit definite breeding 

 grounds for haddock, cod, or other fishes as some European students have believed. 



Depth of spawning. — The important spawning grounds for haddock in the 

 Gulf of Maine are all shoaler than 75 fathoms, but haddock commonly breed in 

 deeper water than cod, and the presence of great numbers of newly spawned eggs 

 floating on the surface out to the 100-fathom contour on the southeastern slope of 

 Georges Bank at the height of the breeding season (March 20) of 1920 is sufficient 

 evidence that the fish were spawning down to that depth. Similarly, we towed 

 cod or haddock eggs (probably haddock, judging from the season) over the 100- 

 fathom contour off the slope of German Bank on May 6, 1914; but this case is not as 

 clear, for there was a decided set of surface water from the eastward at the time 

 which may have brought the eggs from the shoaler part of the bank. One hundred 

 fathoms may be set as the lower limit to any considerable production of eggs in the 

 Gulf of Maine, and no haddock spawn in the deep basin, the few eggs found there 

 (e. g., in the southeast deep and in the Eastern Channel, April, 1920), being flotsam 

 from the neighboring slopes or banks. On the other hand haddock may occasionally 

 deposit their eggs within a couple of fathoms of the surface — for instance, in Booth- 

 bay Harbor on the occasion just noted (p. 439) — but this is most unusual, 15 to 20 

 fathoms being the upper limit to regular spawning. The depths of the more pro- 

 ductive spawning grounds, individually, are as follows: Browns Bank, 30 to 50 

 fathoms and probably deeper; Georges Bank from about 30 down to 100 fathoms, 

 as just noted; Cape Cod ground, about 40 to 70 fathoms; and from 20 to 70 

 fathoms on the more productive Stellwagen ground. Between Cape Ann and Cape 

 Elizabeth haddock spawn in 20 to 65 fathoms. On the whole haddock spawn rather 

 shoaler in the Gulf of Maine than in the North Sea region, where the maximum pro- 

 duction of eggs takes place at 50 to 100 fathoms. Consequently there is less differ- 

 ence in this respect between haddock and cod in the western than in the eastern 

 North Atlantic. Neither do haddock confine their spawning so definitely to smooth 

 bottom in American as in European seas, for Welsh foiind ripe fish chiefly on broken 

 ground "wherever sand, gravel, mud and rocks alternate — if anything, more are 

 taken on the mud in such localities," between Cape Ann and Cape Elizabeth. 



