136 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND FISHERIES. 



Reproduction: Spawns in June and July. Eggs are like those of 

 tautog, 1-26 inch in diameter and buoyant (Brice, Report, U. S. Fish 

 Com., XXIII, 1897, 223.) 



May 30, 1910, 11 specimens were taken in seine; these averaged 64.2 m., 

 and ranged from 50 to 140 mm. Several of the females (56 to 66 

 mm.) had large ovaries, containing transparent, nearly ripe eggs. 

 One male 65 mm. long had large testes with fluid milt. Probably 

 nearly all these specimen were about a year old. 



Food: Like that of tautog. Browses around wharves, piles, and similar 

 places, eating fishes, tunicates, hydroids, annelids, small Crustacea, 

 univalve molluscs; said to be an important scavenger of harbors, 

 feeding on all kinds of dead animal matter. 



Rate of Growth: Many specimens of larvae and young up to H inches 

 long are taken in the lobster-rearing cars each year in July and August, 

 but in somewhat fewer numbers than tautog. Specimens one to two 

 inches long are frequently taken through August and September in 

 seines on the eel-grass of Wickford Harbor. At Woods Hole, about 

 August 1, young an inch long are observed (Smith, 1898). Gunners 

 from four to eight inches long are present throughout the summer and 

 are probably those of the second season, one year old. 



143. Tautoga onitis (Linnaeus). Tautog; Blackfish. 



Geog. Dist.: Atlantic coast, New Brunswick to Charleston. Not com- 

 mon on the Maine shore, but abundant along the remainder of tlie 

 New England coast. 



Habitat: Shallow water on exposed shores about rocks and sea- weed. 



The young apparently live chiefly in the eel-grass and sea-weed along 

 the shores. But specimens one to two inches long are often taken in 

 the seine from the bottom of coves and channels, in depths of eight to 

 fifteen feet; such specimens are almost invariably found in the tufts 

 of rock- weed and brown algae scraped up from the l)ottom. 



Season in R. I.: Abundant from April to November, but taken in the 

 greatest numbers from the middle of May imtil the middle of June. 

 In the winter they seek deeper water, and probably hibernate among 

 the rocks. A few have been taken in Rhode Island in midwinter with 

 lines and in lobster pots (Goode.) There are instances of their 

 death in great numbers during very cold winters. In February, 1857, 

 after a very cold season, hundreds of tons of tautog drifted on the 

 shores of Block Island; in 1841 the same thing occurred on the south- 

 ern shores of Massachusetts and Rhode Island (Gootle). In 1900 the 



