FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 347 



Habits. — Along southern New England sea robins, like many other warm-water 

 fish, leave the coast in October to reappear in April or early May, but it is probable 

 that they merely move out into deeper water below the reach of winter chilling to 

 pass the cold months. If any are resident in the Gulf of Maine they would no 

 doubt follow this same program; and while the rarity of the fish, together with the 

 facts that the earliest recorded date for it in Massachusetts Bay is for June 29 and 

 that no young ones have been reported anywhere in the Gulf of Maine, suggest that 

 the few taken north of Cape Cod have been immigrants, it is likely that once past 

 the Cape they remain there, wintering offshore; that is, their status in the Gulf paral- 

 lels that of the cunner in parts of the Bay of Fundy (p. 285). "Robins," like sculpins, 

 keep to the bottom, where they often lie with the fanlike pectorals spread. When 

 disturbed they bury themselves in the sand, all but the top of the head and eyes. 

 In swimming the pectorals are usually closed against the body, and they are said 

 to employ the feelerlike rays in stirring up the weeds and sand to rout out the 

 small animals upon which they feed. They are usually found on smooth hard 

 bottom; less often on mud or about rocks. 



Food. — The sea robin is a very voracious fish, feeding indifferently on shrimps, 

 crabs of various kinds, amphipods (crustaceans are its chief diet), squids, bivalves, 

 annelids, and on small fish — e. g., herring, menhaden, and small winter flounders. 

 Seaweed has also been found in sea robin stomachs. 



Breeding habits. — It is doubtful whether this fish ever succeeds in reproducing 

 in the Gulf of Maine unless in restricted localities, such as Casco Bay, where the 

 summer temperature rises high; but although we have never taken its rather char- 

 acteristic eggs in our tow nets it is probable that the few that sojourn north of Cape 

 Cod spawn there, if vainly. About Woods Hole it spawns from June to September 

 with July and August the peak of the season. 6 The sea robin, unlike the sculpin 

 tribe, produces buoyant eggs, which are 0.94 to 1.15 mm. in diameter, slightly 

 yellowish in color, with a variable number (10 to 25) of oil globules of unequal size, 

 usually arranged in a more or less definite ring. At a temperature of 72° incubation 

 occupies about 60 hours, but any eggs spawned in the cooler water of the Gulf 

 would be slower in hatching. The newly hatched larvae are 2.5 to 2.8 mm. long, 

 with two transverse yellow bands, one close behind the pectoral fins and the other 

 midway between vent and tail. The yolk is absorbed, the mouth formed, and 

 the yellow markings no longer prominent in five days, at a length of 3 to 3.4 

 mm. The dorsal and anal fin rays are visible and the lower pectoral rays have 

 separated from the remainder of the fin at about 9 mm., and young fish of 25 to 

 30 mm. are darker, with transverse bands, and show most of the anatomic char- 

 acters of the adult. 



Commercial importance. — Although the sea robin is edible, and its near relatives, 

 the gurnards, serve as table fish in Europe, it is not marketable; and at any rate it is 

 too scarce in the Gulf of Maine to be of any importance there either in human or 

 natural economy. Off southern New England, where it is abundant, it is a nuisance 

 to anglers, taking bait planned for better fishes, while hordes of robins sometimes 

 enter the traps. 



8 Kuntz and Radclifle (1918, p. 105-109) give an account of its embryology and larval stages, subsequently confirmed and 

 supplemented by Welsh. 



