FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 45 



Color. — Usually slate colored above but sometimes brown, with a row of small 

 white spots on each side from the pectoral to abreast of the anal, and a few other 

 white spots in front of and behind the first dorsal and in front of the second dorsal 

 fins. These spots are most conspicuous in small fish up to 12 or 14 inches in length 

 and fade with growth until in some specimens they disappear altogether. It is gray 

 to white below. 



General range. — Both sides of the North Atlantic, also Mediterranean; on the 

 American coast from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the banks of Newfoundland 

 south to Cuba. Replaced by closely allied species in the North and South Pacific 

 and Indian Oceans. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The spiny dogfish — "dogfish" or "dog" in 

 common parlance — makes up for the comparative rarity of other sharks in the Gulf 

 of Maine by its obnoxious abundance. To mention all the localities from which 

 it has been reported there would be simply to list every seaside village and every 

 fishing ground from Cape Cod to Cape Sable. On the offshore banks, too, it is 

 as familiar as it is along the coast. Dogfish are seasonal visitors. In spring they 

 strike in almost simultaneously along the whole coast from New England to North 

 Carolina, appearing at Cape Lookout in April, off Long Island abundantly in May, 

 and as early in the season on Georges Bank (April-May) as at Cape Lookout. In 

 the inner parts of the Gulf of Maine the date of the first heavy run of dogfish varies 

 widely from year to year and from place to place. We have not heard of them in 

 Massachusetts Bay before May. Indeed, summer warming is hardly appreciable 

 more than a few fathoms below the surface until well into that month, so they 

 could hardly be expected earlier. However, according to reports of local fisher- 

 men the period of freedom may close there as early as the last half of the month 

 in some years. In 1903, for example, they appeared as far north as Penobscot Bay 

 by the middle of May, and though as a rule it is not until June that they arrive in 

 numbers in the Massachusetts Bay region, it is sometimes impossible to set gill or 

 drift nets anywhere between Cape Cod and Cape Elizabeth after the first days of 

 that month, so numerous are they. In 1913 the first heavy run of dogs struck Ipswich 

 Bay on June 14, and they appeared there at about the same date in 1905, but there 

 is much local variation in this respect. In 1903, for example, they did not appear 

 until early July at Provincetown, though swarming a month earlier in other parts 

 of Massachusetts Bay, in Ipswich Bay, and off Penobscot Bay. However, they 

 usually strike in all along the northern Maine and west Nova Scotian coasts by the 

 end of June, though earlier in the open Bay of Fundy than in Passamaquoddy Bay, 

 where few are seen until late in July. 



West of Cape Cod (that is, at Woods Hole and oft" Long Island) it was formerly 

 believed that these little sharks were only transients, passing north in spring, south 

 in autumn, which were the only seasons when they were seen inshore regularly. 

 However, dogs, both large and small, are caught in the traps of the Woods Hole 

 region in Julj^, and Latham's ^^ recent discovery that adult spiny dogfish are common 

 in deep water in Long Island Sound in summer, together with the fact (on which 

 he comments) that young ones are taken in great numbers in the traps on Long Island 



« Copeia, Oct. 15, 1921, No. 99, p. 72. 



