FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



177 



Fish) , who kept pipefish under observation at the laboratory of the United States 

 Bureau of Fisheries at Woods Hole during the summer of 1922. 



Pipefish fry kept in aquaria have been found to grow from 10 mm. to 70 mm. 

 in length within about two months after hatching." Probably they mature when 

 about 1 year old. Pipefish may be expected to breed in every favorable locality 

 all around the shores of the Gulf, but there are local differences in this respect, 

 for while St. Mary Bay, Annapolis Basin, and Cobequid Bay, on the Nova 

 Scotian shore of the Bay of Fundy, are breeding centers according to Huntsman, 

 large specimens alone are known about Passamaquoddy Bay on the New Bruns- 

 wick side. No doubt the estuarine waters from the Massachusetts Bay region to 

 Penobscot Bay are favorable nurseries. 



Commercial importance. — The pipefish is of no commercial importance. It is 

 not even good for bait. 



THE SEA HORSES. FAMILY HIPPOCAMPIDiE 

 69. Sea horse {Hippocampus hudsonius DeKay) 



Jordan and Evermann, 1S96-1900, p. 777. 



Description. — With its laterally compressed body, its deep convex belly, its 

 curved neck and curious horselike head carried at right angles to the general axis 



-^.' . -^'^^^^^^^^m 



^M$.^ 



Fig. 82. — Sea horso (Hippocampus hudsonius) 



of the body, the sea horse grotesquely resembles the "knight" in an ordinary set 

 of wooden chessmen. The head is surmounted by a pentagonal star-shaped coronet, 

 and the snout is tubular with the small oblique mouth at its tip, like that of its 

 relative the pipefish. There is a sharp spine on each side above and one behind the 

 eye, a third over the gill cover, and a fourth on the side of the throat, which some- 

 times terminate in cirri, besides a blunt horn between the nostrils. Neck, body, 

 and tail are covered with rings of bony plates, 12 rings on the trunk, 32 to 35 on 

 the tail, and each body ring is armed with four blunt spines. The dorsal fin (about 

 19 rays) originates about midway of the length of the fish, opposite the vent, and 

 runs backward over three and one-half rings — that is, to within half a ring of the 

 commencement of the tail. The very small anal stands opposite the posterior 



» Tracy, 1910, p. 93. 



