FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 527 



razor-billed auks all being on its recorded dietary, while I have found grebes and 

 other diving fowl, such as scaup ducks and mergansers, in goosefish in Pamlico 

 Sound, N. C. It is questionable, however, whether even the largest would be 

 able to master a live goose, as rumor has it, nor do the local fishermen believe it 

 ever does so in Pamlico Sound, though the abundance of wild geese there in winter 

 would afford it every opportunity. Goode (et al., 1884), however, tells of one 

 which he actually saw struggling with a loon. 



Goosefish are also known to devour invertebrates such as lobsters, crabs of 

 several species, hermit crabs, squids, annelid worms, shellfish, starfish, sand dollars, 

 and even eelgrass — in short, nothing edible that strays within reach comes amiss — 

 and examinations of stomachs have shown (as might have been expected) that 

 the relative importance of various articles in its diet varies widely on different 

 grounds, depending on what is available. Near Woods Hole, for instance, Field 

 (1907, p. 39) found skates, flounders, and squid its chief dependence. The 32- 

 pounder from Woods Hole mentioned above contained 2 menhaden, 1 spiny dog- 

 fish a foot long, and the vertebral columns of 6 others. In Scottish waters 4 it 

 feeds chiefly on dabs, haddock, launce, and the European whiting; off Norway it 

 feeds on herring, with skates, gurnards, and other bottom fish; on hake 5 in eastern 

 Canadian waters, including the Bay of Fundy; and on haddock, flatfish, and 

 skates on Georges Bank. Crabs are the chief invertebrate contribution to its 

 diet. 



The goosefish is as remarkable for its appetite as for the variety of animals 

 that fall prey to it. We read, for instance, of one that had made a meal of 21 

 flounders and 1 dogfish, all of marketable size; of half a pailful of cunners, tomcod, 

 and sea bass in another; of 75 herring in a third; 3 flatfish, 1 dogfish, 1 European 

 whiting, 3 crabs, and 14 starfish in another; and of one that had taken 7 wild ducks 

 at one meal. In fact it is nothing unusual for one to contain at one time a mass 

 of food hah as heavy as the fish itself, and with its enormous mouth (one 3% feet 

 long gapes about 9 inches horizontally and 8 inches vertically) and capacious belly 

 it is able to swallow fish of almost its own size. Fulton, for instance, found a 

 codling (a European species) 23 inches long in a goosefish of only 26 inches, while 

 Field took from another a winter flounder almost as big as its captor. Captain 

 Atwood long ago described seeing one struggling to swallow another as large as 

 itself, and examples of this sort could be multiplied. As a rule, however, goose- 

 fish feed on small fish, not on large ones, and even the largest of them take very 

 small fry on occasion. Interesting, because exceptional, is Linton's 8 report of one 

 full of mud containing small shellfish, crustaceans, and worms. Goosefish, like 

 most fish of prey, often swallow indigestible objects. They have even been credited 

 (on how good evidence we can not say) with pouching lobster-pot buoys, and the 

 story of one whose mouth made a holding ground for the boat anchor of an angler 

 from Nahant has often been related. 



4 Fulton (Twenty-first Annual Report, Fisheries Board for Scotland, 1902 (1903), Part III, p. 195) describes the stomach 

 contents of 541 goosefish from various localities off Scotland. 



• Connolly, 1920, p. 16. 



• Bulletin, United States Fish Commission, Vol. XIX, 1899 (1901), p. 487. 



