INTRODUCTION 



Between December 1965 and December 1966 Sandy Hook Laboratory con- 

 ducted an ichthyoplankton survey of continental shelf waters from Martha's 

 Vineyard, Massachusetts to Cape Lookout, North Carolina. This study was 

 designed to determine where and when marine fishes spawn, describe dis- 

 tributions and dispersal patterns of their eggs and larvae, and was 

 intended to eventually help us evaluate the extent of estuarine dependence 

 of their young. 



This report presents data on young stages of 166 taxa and includes 

 descriptions of sampling design and physical conditions associated with 

 the plankton collections. Although the identifications of some taxa are 

 not to the specific level, we present these data in their present form 

 because: 1) the areal and seasonal extent of our survey is the most 

 comprehensive undertaken in the Middle Atlantic Bight; 2) we have received 

 many requests for portions of the data; 3) the small numbers of some 

 species do not warrant publishing individually; and 4) there is value 

 in publishing the data by station as well as by species. 



Some data have already been published. Field and laboratory procedures, 

 physical conditions, zooplankton volumes, and a list of juvenile and adult 

 fishes caught in a mid-water trawl are included in Clark et al. (1969). 

 Reports on individual species taken from plankton samples have been 

 published as follows: Centropristis striata (Kendall 1972), Ammodytes sp. 

 (Richards and Kendall 1973), Paralichthys dentatus (Smith 1973), Merluccius 

 bilinearis (Fahay 1974) , Brevoortia tyrannus (Kendall and Reintjes 1975) , 

 and Pleuronectiformes (Smith et al . 1975). Descriptions of young stages. 



