130 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



have been bred in Great Egg Harbor Bay, N. J" (Bean, 1903). 



The egg is pelagic and has a diameter of 1-32 inch; it hatches in forty 



hours in the warm water of the Gulf 7G° or 77° (Brice, Report, U. S. 



Fish Commission, XXIII, 1897, 224). 

 Food: Barnacles, shell-fish. 

 Rate of Growth: At Great Egg Harbor, N. J., twenty young individuals 



one inch to one and a quarter inches were seined between August 10 



and September 9 (Bean, 1903). 



KYPHOSID^. The Rudder-Fishes. 



133. Kyphosus sectatrix (Linnaeus). Rudder-fish. 



Geog. Dist.: Common in West Indies and Key West, and east to the 

 Canary Islands, straying to Cape Cod. At Woods Hole, not rare, in 

 summer and fall; occasionally found in April (Baird, 1873; Smith, 

 1898). Rare on Long Island (Bean, 1903). 



Season in R. I.: Specimen in U. S. National Museum, taken at Newport 

 by Mr. Samuel Powell (Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., 1879, 46). 



Rate of Growth: Only young specimens up to six inches long secured 

 at Woods Hole (Smith). Adult reaches a length of eighteen inches. 



SCIAENID^. The Drums. 



134. Cynoscion regalis (Bloch and Schneider). Squeteague; Weakfish. 

 Geog. Dist.: Abundant from Cape Cod to Florida, straying on the Gulf 



coast to Mobile, north to the Bay of Fundy. Recorded from coast of 

 Maine by Holmes (1862). Abundant along remainder of New Eng- 

 land and Long Island shore. 



Migrations: Taken on the Jersey coast in April; first appear on the 

 Rhode Island coast in the middle of May. The temperature of the 

 water at the time of their arrival is about 50° F., though their move- 

 ments may depend more on the presence of schools of menhaden and 

 butter-fish, on which they feed, than on the temperature. It is thought 

 that their abundance from year to year is affected by the presence of 

 bluefish. De Kay (1842), Storer (1853), and Bean (1903) have stated 

 evidence to show that when bluefish are abundant, squeteague are 

 scarce, and vice versa. 



Season in R. T.: Scattering individuals are taken the middle or last of 

 May, but the large run does not come imtil about June 10. Very 

 abundant throughout the remainder of the season and is the 

 most important food fish of the State after the end of the scuj) 



