FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 101 



any time after mid-July. At Cohasset, however, near the head of the Bay, this 

 seldom happens before September, but we ourselvos have seen "sperling" very 

 plentiful there, singly and in small companies, in July and August. 



During the autumn these two year classes (the fish in their first year have 

 grown to a longth of 3 or 4 inches; those in their second year to 7 to 9 inches by 

 September) together with the large spawning adults are very abundant all around 

 the shore line of our Gulf, but they begin to thin out after the middle of October, 

 and when winter sets in the fish that are then 1 and 2 years old move out into 

 deeper water once more, few being taken after early December. Probably they 

 winter mostly on the bottom, for schools are very seldom reported on the surface 

 then, but there is no reason to suppose that the bulk of them travel far, for herring 

 of all sizes are to be found in the Bay of Fundy all winter and are even caught 

 occasionally in the weirs near Eastport as late as February, being seen again as 

 early as March and April. 



It is during the third summer, when the Gulf of Maine herring is past the 

 "sardine" or "sperling" stage and has not yet reached spawning age, that least is 

 known about its movements. It is now "fat" and termed a "sea" or "summer" 

 herring locally. Our "fat" herring lie offshore more than do the younger fish, and 

 although numbers of them are taken in the weirs and traps all along the coast there 

 seems to be no definite run of them inshore. On the other hand they are often 

 met far at sea, and it is generally taken for granted that the schools of herring 

 encountered out in the open Gulf in summer belong to this category, for when a 

 mackerel seiner picks up such a school 98 the fish usually are very fat and show no 

 signs of approaching sexual maturity. 



Some years these "summer" herring, weighing about 1 pound and very fat 

 (locally they are called "spawn" herring, but this is an error), are taken in the traps 

 at Provincetown for a week or so about mid-April. They are met at about the 

 same time off Gloucester (in 1915 they were reported 8 to 15 miles off Cape Ann on 

 the 17th), and they are said by the fishermen to work eastward thereafter, being 

 found off Seguin in May and June and off Mount Desert in late summer. As a 

 rule few of them are taken inside the islands, but these "fat" herring came right 

 into the harbor of Boothbay about May 14 in 1914. Fishermen universally agree 

 that they follow the coast only as far east as Mount Desert Rock, hence it is prob- 

 able that they pass the late summer and early autumn offshore in the northeast 

 corner of the Gulf, after which they drop out of sight. 



The large mature herring (in the fourth summer and older) live some distance 

 offshore during most of the- year and, as European experience suggests, near bottom, 

 coming inshore only to spawn, for they are neither caught along shore nor seen 

 schooling on the surface except for a brief period before, during, and after the 

 spawning season. Since they are to be found throughout the year in the Bay of 

 Fundy, however, it is not probable that they travel far. The date of their appear- 

 ance on the coast depends not only on the date when spawning commences (p. 96), 

 but to some extent on purely geographical conditions, for they show about the 



•• Many events of this sort have been reported. For example, a large catch of fat summer herring was made on Georges 

 Bank and reported to the Massachusetts Commissioners in the midsummer of 1001. 



