FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 237 



anal is preceded by a short detached spine that disappears with growth. The 

 caudal fin is deeply forked like that of other pompanos and the pectorals are sharp 

 pointed and falciform, reaching back behind the middle of the second dorsal. 



Color. — Small specimens — and northern strays are usually small — are silvery 

 above as well as below, with the ground tint of the back leaden, the sides barred 

 with several crossbands, variously described as dark or golden. These bands fade 

 out with growth, however. 



Size. — Grows to a weight of 2 pounds. 



General range. — Warm waters on the east and west coasts of America, north 

 rarely to Cape Cod, and casual in the Gulf of Maine. Common from Chesapeake 

 Bay southward. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — We find only three records for the lookdown 

 in the Gulf — two for Casco Bay and one for Dorchester, in Massachusetts Bay, 

 Hence, since no one would be apt to overlook so bizarre a fish, it must be a very 

 rare straggler from the south. 



THE BLUEFISHES. FAMILY POMATOMID^ 



The bluefish (the only member of the family) resembles the pompano family 

 in the general structure and arrangement of its fins, there being two dorsals, spiny 

 and soft, with the ventrals thoracic in situation; but it lacks the free spines in front 

 of the anal fin which are characteristic of most pompanos, its caudal peduncle is 

 deeper, its tail less deeply forked, and its teeth are much larger. In its general 

 body form and in the arrangement of its fins it bears a superficial resemblance to 

 certain of the weakfish family (p. 269) , but is readily separable from any of the latter 

 by the fact that its anal fin is nearly as long as the soft (second) dorsal, and from 

 the sea-bass family because its first (spiny) dorsal is much lower than the second. 

 Most American ichthyologists look upon the bluefish family as closely allied to the 

 pompanos, but according to another view it should be grouped with the sea-bass 

 tribe because of skeletal characters. 



92. Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix Linnaeus) 1 



Snapper (young) 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 946. 



Description. — According to Jordan and Evermann and to most of their suc- 

 cessors, the bluefish is separable from its closest allies, the pompanos (Carangidaa), 

 by a tail "not deeply forked" and by the larger scales, statements that may easily 

 be misleading, for while the bluefish certainly has a less deeply forked tail than the 

 pompanos, anyone, we think, would describe it as deeply forked as compared with 

 any square-tailed fish, and while its scales are larger than those of most pompanos 

 there is not much difference in this respect between a bluefish and a large crevalle 

 (p. 233). There is, however, one positive point of difference. The jaws of the 



i This fish has been known by various vernacular names along the middle and southern coasts of the United States. In the 

 Gulf of Maine, however, it is simply the "bluefish." 



