442 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



The Gulf of Maine haddock spawn chiefly from late February until May, and the 

 following record, supplied by C. G. Corliss, superintendent of the local hatchery, 

 will illustrate the brief duration of the peak of the period of reproduction for the 

 neighborhood of Gloucester: 



It appears from the hatchery records, corroborated by Welsh's experience in 

 1913, that the commencement of spawning varies considerably in date from year to 

 year, the fish breeding freely as early as the end of January in early seasons but 

 not until the end of March or even the first part of April in late seasons. The bulk 

 of them, however, are invariably spawned out by the middle or end of May at the 

 latest. The spawning season is apparently the same on Georges Bank as in the inner 

 waters of the Gulf, for we found cod-haddock eggs in moderate numbers across its 

 western end late in February, great numbers of them (and took ripe haddock in the 

 trawl) on the eastern end on March 11 and 12, and they were still plentiful there on 

 April 16 and 17. Similarly, Mr. Douthart, of the Bureau of Fisheries, towed haddock 

 eggs over the north-central portion of the bank on April 14 and again on the 26th 

 and 27th, in 1913, but the Albatross found none on the western part of the bank on 

 May 17 in 1920. 



Spawning is likewise at its height in mid-April on Browns Bank (large egg 

 catches in our tow nets April 16, 1920). Although ripe haddock have occasionally 

 been taken near Gloucester as late as the first hah of July 7 this is quite exceptional, 

 and since our latest egg date is June 10 (Petit Passage, Nova Scotia) it is unlikely 

 that haddock spawn regularly anywhere west of Cape Sable after the middle of that 

 month. The spawning season continues later into the summer in the colder water 

 along the southern shores of Nova Scotia, for we took several unmistakable haddock 

 among numerous newly spawned cod or haddock eggs a few miles oft* Shelburne on 

 June 23, 1915, while Dannevig 8 records occasional haddock larvse off Halifax on 

 July 23, near Cape Sable Island on July 25 and 26, and on St. Pierre Bank on 

 July 27 and 28 for that same summer. 



The breeding season is the same in European as in American seas — that is, end 

 of January until late June — with the peak of production falling as early as March 

 and April in the North Sea region but not until June around Iceland. 9 



Temperature and salinity. — The Georges and Browns Bank haddock spawn in 

 temperatures ranging from about 36.5° to about 42° to 43°, and the whole spawning 

 period on the coastwise grounds between Cape Cod and Cape Elizabeth is likewise 

 completed before the stratum of water in which the fish are lying has warmed more 



' Earll, 1880, p. 730. 



» Canadian Fisheries Expedition, 1914-15 (1919), p. 21. 



s Damas, Rapports et Proees-Verbam, Conseil International pour l'Exploration de la Mer, Vol. X, 1909, Schmidt, ibid. 



