FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 529 



of the fish 8 and the presence of the eggs, while in the Mediterranean, with its 

 higher temperature, the seasonal occurrence of the larvae points to early winter 

 spawning, though eggs have not actually been found there. 



The locality of spawning, whether inshore in shoal water or offshore in deep 

 water, has been the subject of some discussion, Bowman 10 having advanced the 

 second possibihty to account for the fact that most of the egg veils so far reported 

 have been far advanced in incubation, and to explain the apparent rarity of larvae 

 in northern seas. 



Both of the Bay of Fundy egg clusters described by Conolly were newly 

 spawned, which is sufficient proof that goosefish do breed in the inner parts of the 

 Gulf of Maine; and they do so commonly, it seems, in the Woods Hole region where 

 the egg skeins are familiar objects both floating and when entangled in the local 

 fish traps. Furthermore large adult fish are present in abundance on their regular 

 grounds throughout the spawning season, which would hardly be the case if they 

 moved offshore or into deep water to breed, nor would any very extended journey 

 seem within the physical ability of so stationary a fish and so feeble a swimmer. We 

 therefore believe the weight of evidence points to the same shoal coastal bottoms, 

 which they inhabit at other times, as their spawning grounds. 



The only definite records for monkfish eggs in the Gulf of Maine so far pub- 

 lished are those just mentioned, nor is the local fist of captures of its larvae 

 much larger, consisting only of three taken off Brazil Rock (described by Conolly), 

 two very small ones (5 and 6.5 mm.) towed by the Grampus in Massachusetts Bay 

 on July 12, 1912, and September 29, 1915, and of others described from the same 

 general region by Agassiz (1882) . Since both the eggs and the larvae are exceedingly 

 conspicuous and easily recognized, while the latter pass through a long pelagic 

 stage, it does not seem likely we would have missed them constantly in our tow 

 nets were they as plentiful as the corresponding stages of other co mm on Gulf of 

 Maine fishes that breed at the same season. The simplest explanation for this 

 apparent rarity of the young would be that while a few breed successfully in the 

 Gulf of Maine the maintenance of the local stock depends more on immigration 

 from elsewhere, with the frequency of egg veils at Woods Hole pointing to 

 southern New England waters as their source; but this suggestion is advanced only 

 as a tentative hypothesis, to be accepted or rejected in the light of later knowledge. 



The eggs are shed in remarkable ribbon-shaped veils of mucus, often 20 to 

 30 feet long by 2 or 3 feet wide, in which they are arranged in a single irregular 

 layer, each egg floating free, oil globule uppermost, in a hexagonal cavity. It is 

 probable that each sheet is the product of a single ovary, and Fulton 11 estimated 

 the number of eggs in two nearly ripe ovaries at 1,345,848 and 1,312,587, respectively. 

 These veils are light violet gray or purplish brown in color, made more or less black- 

 ish by the embryonic pigment of the eggs according to the stage of development 

 attained by the latter. They are so conspicuous as they float on the surface that 



8 Fulton. Sixteenth Annual Report, Fishery Board for Scotland, 1897 (1898), Part III, pp. 125-134, Pis. II-III. 



> Stiasny. Arbeit, Zoologische Institute Vienna, Vol. 19, 1911, p. 14. 



» Fishery Board for Scotland, Scientific Investigations, 1919 (1920), No. II, pp. 1-42, Pis. I-VI, 2 charts. 



» Sixteenth Annual Report, Fishery Board for Scotland, 1897 (1898), Part III, pp. 125-134, Pis. II-III. 



