152 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



Color. — The pearlsides, according to Smitt, is colored much like a herring, with 

 dark bluish or greenish back and lustrous silvery-white sides and belly. The lumi- 

 nous spots are black rimmed, their centers pale blue in life but turning yellow in 

 alcohol, and there is a narrow black band along the base of the anal fin and from 

 there to the base of the caudal, the latter being barred with a similar black band. 



Size. — Only 1 to 2}/2 inches long. 



Oeneral range. — The pearlsides (there are several other species closely allied 

 to it) ranges widely in the open Atlantic, occurring at times in shoals on the coasts 

 of Norway and in British waters. It is particularly common off the coast of Scot- 

 land but has seldom been recorded on the American side of the Atlantic. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — ^The known occurrences of the pearlsides in 

 the Gulf are few. Storer (1867) recordsonefoundaliveonthebeachatNahant,Mass., 

 in December, 1837; another taken from the stomach of a cod at Provincetown; a 

 third picked up alive there in July, 1865 (pictured by Storer on plate 25, figure 5) ; 

 and five others found on the Provincetown beach soon afterward. The pearlsides 

 has not been reported in the southern part of the Gulf since that time, though 

 recorded from Woods Hole on two occasions, 22 having been found dead on the 

 beach in November, 1906. It has been found twice at Grand Manan, however, 

 while in July, 1914, specimens were picked up on the beach at Campobello Island 

 at the mouth of the Bay of Fimdy,'^ and others were taken from the stomach of a 

 pollock caught near by. We suspect that the pearlsides is not as rare in the Gulf 

 of Maine as the paucity of actual records for it there might suggest (in fact, 

 Storer tells us that a Nahant fisherman reported finding them repeatedly in the 

 stomachs of haddock many years ago), but that it keeps out of sight, being an 

 inhabitant of the deeper water layers, as its luminous organs woidd suggest, and 

 comes to the siu-face chiefly at night. It can hardly be plentiful or we would 

 have taken it in our deep tow-net hauls. 



Habits. — The relatives of the pearlsides are oceanic, living in the mid-depths 

 mostly below 150 fathoms, but the pearlsides itself has so often been foimd in the 

 stomachs of cod and herring (fish that do not descend to any great depth) that there 

 is no reason to regard it as a "deep-sea" stray, nor has it ever been taken far from 

 land so far as we can learn. It probably spawns in early spring, females with large 

 eggs having been taken in Scottish waters in winter. 



54. Viperflsh {CTiauliodus sloanei Bloch and Schneider) 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 585. 



Description. — The viperfish has an adipose fin and luminous organs like its 

 relative, the pearlsides, but in general appearance it is very different from it and 

 from all other GuK of Maine fishes. Most obvious of its characteristics is its bull- 

 doglike mouth. The lower jaw is longer than the upper, the latter being armed 

 with four long fangs on each side, while the lower has a series of pointed teeth set 

 far apart, those in front very elongate and all of them so long that they project 

 when the mouth is closed. Furthermore, the snout is so short that the very wide 

 mouth gapes far back of the eye. The body is about seven times as long as deep, 



" These Fundian records are from Huntsman (1922a, p. 13). 



