178 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU 01" FISHERIES 



part of the dorssil. The pectorals are of moderate size, broad based and round 

 tipped; there are no ventrals and no caudal fin. The body tapers suddenly 

 behind the anal fin to a long tail, which is four-cornered in cross section, curled 

 inward, and strongly prehensile. In the male the lower siu-face of the fore part 

 of the tail bears the brood pouch opening by a slit in front. 



Color. — Light brown or dusky to ashen gray or yellow, variously mottled and 

 blotched with paler and darker — sometimes spangled with silver dots, sometimes 

 plain colored. European sea horses change color according to their surroundings, 

 tints of red, yellow, brown, and white all being wtliin their capabilities, and it is 

 probable that the American species is equally adaptable. 



Size. — Adults are usually 3 to 6 inches long, one of 734 inches being the largest 

 on record.^^ 



General range. — Atlantic coast of North America, occurring regularly from 

 South Carolina to Cape Cod, and to Nova Scotia as a stray. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Although an occasional specimen has been 

 picked up on Georges Bank and as far east as Nova Scotia, the sea horse is not 

 common much beyond New York. Only a few are found each year about Woods 

 Hole, chiefly in July, August, and September, and they so rarely stray past Cape 

 Cod that we have only one definite (Provincetown) and one dubious (Massachusetts 

 Bay) record of its capture in the Gulf of Maine, dead or alive. 



Sea horses dwell chiefly among eelgrass and seaweed,'^ where they cling with 

 their prehensile tails, monkeylike, to some stalk. They usually swim in a vertical 

 position by undulations of the dorsal fin, not with the tail, the trunk being too 

 stiff for much lateral motion. 



Food. — Sea horses feed on minute Crustacea and on various larvae — in fact 

 on any animal small enough — sucking in the prey as does the pipefish (p. 176). 



Habits. — These fish breed in summer *' and the breeding habits resemble 

 those of the pipefish, the male nursing the eggs in his brood pouch where they 

 are deposited a few at a time by the female in repeated copulations. At hatching 

 the young, of which there may be as many as 150, are about 10 to 12 mm. long. 

 When the yolk sac is absorbed the father squeezes them out of the brood sac. 

 According to some students they swim out and in at will, but this calls for verifica- 

 tion. Within a few days after they are set free they already resemble the adult 

 in general appearance. 



Commercial importance. — The sea horse is of no commercial value but is an 

 object of constant interest to visitors to marine aquaria. 



THE SILVERSIDES. FAMILY ATHERINIDiE 



These are small fishes, smeltlike in appearance but with a spiny as well as a 



soft dorsal fin and with no adipose fin. Two species are known from the Gulf of 



Maine. 



KEY TO GULF OF MAINE SILVERSIDES 



1. About 24 rays in the an."J fin Common silverside, p. 179 



Only 15 or 16 rays in the anal fin Waxen silverside, p. 181 



» Bulletin, New York Zoological Society, Vol. XVI, No. 66, Mar., 1913, p. 972. 



" Gill (Proceedings, U. S. National Museum, Vol. XXVIII, 1905, pp. 805-814) has given an excellent account of the habits 

 and life history of the sea horse. 



" Ryder (Bulletin, U. S. Fish Commission, Vol. I, 1881 (1882), pp. 191-199) describes its development. 



