FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 283 



for the Gulf of Maine. Generally speaking, they are much less numerous east of 

 Casco Bay, and our experience has been that they are progressively less and less 

 plentiful, but average larger, passing east along the shore from Penobscot Bay 

 toward the Bay of Fundy. About Mount Desert, for example, it is unusual to 

 catch one in the inclosed harbors (precisely the localities they frequent farther west 

 and south), and most of those caught outside are very large. I, myself, took 

 many of 12 to 13 inches, averaging about 1J^ pounds, near Baker's Island, off 

 Northeast Harbor, in August, 1922, and no small ones. Cunners are very rare 

 in the Bay of Fundy and only the largest sizes are ever seen there, though they are 

 known from sundry widely separated Fundian localities. Cunners of all sizes are 

 numerous in St. Mary Bay, at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy but tributary to 

 the open Gulf of Maine, and they are reported along the Nova Scotian shore of 

 the latter and are locally abundant on the outer (southern) coast of Nova Scotia. 



The cunner is chiefly a coastwise fish, the great majority of the stock living 

 within a couple of miles of tide mark; and though cunners inhabit offshore as well 

 as inshore grounds, such as Stellwagen Bank, Jeffreys and Cashes Ledges, and even 

 Georges and Browns Banks, where the otter trawls frequently pick up a few, we 

 have never heard of a large catch of them out at sea. They are most abundant 

 from just below tide mark down to 3 or 4 fathoms, and young cunners are often 

 found among eelgrass or in rock pools, but as a rule one finds them running smaller 

 and smaller the farther one goes up any estuary. On the other hand, they are 

 common enough at 10 to 15 fathoms in the inner parts of Massachusetts Bay, and 

 not rare as deep as 25 to 35 fathoms on the offshore ledges and banks. The fish 

 caught deepest are usually very large ones that have probably strayed thither from 

 shoal water and, finding good feeding, remained. 



The cunner is a bottom feeder. So far as we know adults never swim on the 

 surface nor depart far from the ground or from the rocks about which they make 

 their homes, nor do they school. Many, it is true, may live together, but they 

 act quite independent of one another, simply congregating because the surroundings 

 are attractive. Cunners, like other rockfish, spend much of the time resting 

 quietly or swimming slowly among the bunches of Irish moss (Chondrus) or fronds 

 of kelp, always on the lookout for food. 



Food. — Cunners are omnivorous. As a rule they find a livelihood browsing 

 among weeds, stones, or piles, picking up or biting off barnacles and small blue 

 mussels, with the fragments of which they are often packed full. They devour 

 enormous numbers of amphipods, shrimps, young lobsters, crabs, and other small 

 crustaceans of all kinds, univalve and the smaller bivalve mollusks, hydroids, annelid 

 worms, sometimes small sea urchins, bryozoa, and ascidians, and they occasionally 

 capture small fish such as sdversides, sticklebacks, pipefish, mummichogs, and the 

 fry of larger species. Finally, cunner stomachs are often found to contain eelgrass 

 as well as animal food. Small cunner fry taken at Woods Hole were found by 

 Doctor Linton to hare fed chiefly on small Crustacea such as copepods, amphipods, 

 and isopods. 



The cunner is a busy scavenger in harbors, congregating about any animal 

 refuse, to feed on the latter as well as on the amphipods and other crustaceans 



