184 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



at Woods Hole and in the Gulf Stream off Marthas Vineyard (Wheeler, 1901); and 

 likewise at several stations on the continental shelf and along the continental edge 

 between Woods Hole and Chesapeake Bay (Bigelow, 1915 and 1922). 



Because of its large size and brilliant color this is the most conspicuous of all 

 Gulf of Maine, copepods, but is usually so scarce there that horizontal hauls must be 

 depended upon to outline its distribution, the verticals being apt to miss it. Up to 

 the present, time has not permitted search for it in the mass of copepods taken in the 

 deep horizontals for the period February to May, 1920, but it did not occur at all in 

 the surface hauls for those months (table, p. 303), and only three times and in minimal 

 amounts (1 per cent of the catch) in the verticals, suggesting that although these 

 captures prove its presence in the gulf in spring it is then very scarce. This is 

 corroborated by the fact that in July it has been detected at only two of the forty-odd 

 stations for which the copepod catches of the horizontal nets were examined by 

 Doctor Esterly or by me (p. 10) — one of them in Massachusetts Bay and the other 

 a few miles north of Cape Ann — but Anomalocera must either multiply in the gulf 

 or invade it during midsummer, for it has occurred at fully 50 per cent of our stations 

 for August and at localities generally distributed over the whole inner and northern 

 part of the gulf north of a line Cape Cod- Cape Sable. Although no tows were 

 made on Georges Bank in August during the period 1912 to 1921, Dr. W. C. Kendall, 

 in his field notes (p. 12), records "green copepods" (which, from his description, can 

 only have been Anomalocera) from enough of the surface tows on the northwestern 

 part of the Bank and thence to Cape Cod and off Marthas Vineyard, in the last week 

 of August, 1896 (fig. 63), to show that this copepod is as generally distributed over 

 the offshore grounds during that month as it is in the inner parts of the gulf. The 

 seasonal history of Anomalocera is the same in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, where the 

 Canadian fisheries expedition did not find it at all in May or June, but widely dis- 

 tributed (though nowhere plentiful) in August. Similarly, it appeared in the last 

 week of July off Halifax, where it was wanting in May (Willey, 1919). 



Judging from the year 1915, Anomalocera practically vanishes from the gulf 

 after the end of August, for it was taken in only two of the horizontal tows at the 

 12 September stations (on the 1st and 6th, stations 10308 and 10314), and did not 

 appear in a collection of copepods made at St. Andrews by Dr. A. G. Huntsman on 

 the 15th (Willey, 1919, p. 220) . We have only one record of it in the gulf in October, 94 

 none for November, one for December (see table, p. 304), none for January, February, 

 or until March (see table, p. 305). 



Thus, Anomalocera certainly persists in the gulf throughout the greater part 

 of the year; and it is probable that a few survive over the coldest period, though it 

 has not actually been taken within our limits at that time. From September until 

 July it is always very scarce, but it has a brief period of comparative abundance 

 during the month of August, when it may become so nearly universal in all parts of 

 the open gulf that surface tows usually pick up at least one or two. It is such a 

 noticeable object in the catch that its presence is almost certain to be recognized. 

 It is equally a summer copepod at Woods Hole (Fish, 1925, fig. 46). 



»< Vertical haul off Penobscot Bay, Oct. 9, 1915, station 10329. 



