FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 7 



had gathered a large body of original observations on the growth, reproduction, 



diet, and other phases of the lives of many of the more important species. The 



report was far advanced when interrupted by his untimely death, and so much of 



the material had been collected that, at the request of the Bureau of Fisheries, I 



have undertaken to carry it to publication along the lines originally laid down, 



though I am unable to give it the value it would have possessed had Mr. Welsh 



been able to finish it. 



SCOPE OF THE WORK 



Our aim has been to prepare a handbook for the ready identification of the 

 fishes occurring in the Gulf of Maine, and to present a concise statement of what 

 is known of the distribution, relative abundance, and the more significant facts in 

 the life history of each. The descriptions have been made as little technical as is 

 compatible with scientific accuracy, and are chiefly limited to such external features 

 as may suffice for identification in the field. As a further aid to identification, keys 

 to all species have been provided. In every case the sizes of larval fish or eggs have 

 been given in millimeters (1 inch equals 25.4 millimeters), but these can be easily 

 converted into inches or parts of an inch. We have followed Garman (1913) in the 

 nomenclature of the sharks, skates, and rays, and Jordan and Evermann 

 (1896-1900) for all the others, except as noted. For each species we have given 

 page references to these authors, where the reader, if interested, may find more 

 detailed descriptions and synonymies. Most of the illustrations have been 

 borrowed from earlier publications, but a few are original. Rules given under 

 illustrations represent a length of 1 inch. 



AREA COVERED 



The term " Gulf of Maine " covers the oceanic bight from Nantucket and Cape 

 Cod on the west to Cape Sable on the east, thus including the shore lines of northern 

 Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and parts of New Brunswick and Nova 

 Scotia. The eastern and western boundaries adopted in this paper are 65° and 

 70° west longitude, respectively. Southern species, recorded but once from 

 Nantucket and which have no real status in the Gulf of Maine except as accidental 

 stragglers, have been relegated to footnotes. The Gulf of Maine has a natural 

 seaward rim formed by Nantucket Shoals, Georges Bank, and Browns Bank. We 

 have chosen the 150-fathom contour as the arbitrary offshore boundary because 

 this will include all the species likely to be caught by commercial fishermen and will 

 exclude almost the entire category of deep-sea fishes so numerous in the basin of 

 the open Atlantic but not constituents of the fauna of the Gulf of Maine. 



The general geography of this area wUl be the subject of another report, but 

 it may not be amiss to point out here that the temperature of the Gulf and its 

 fauna as a whole are boreal, its southern and western boundaries being the northern 

 limit of common occuiTcnce of many southern species of fishes and invertebrates. 

 102274— 25t 2 



