PISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



181 



water mark. The eggs, 1.1 to 1.2 mm. in diameter, each bearing a bunch of sticky 

 filaments, sink and stick fast in ropy clusters or sheets. Incubation occupied 

 8 or 9 daj^s in the laboratory at Woods Hole. The yolk is absorbed before hatching, 

 at which time the larvse are about 3.85 to 5 mm. long. The dorsal, anal, and caudal 

 fins are formed in larvae of 12 to 15 mm. length. The young grew to a length of 9.3 

 to 11.7 mm. during the first 20 days in the aquaria. Probably they grow more 

 rapidly at liberty, for all sizes from fry of an inch or less to adults are constantly to 

 be found throughout the summer. Probably the silverside attains maturity at 

 1 year of age. 



Commercial importance. — The chief function of the silverside in the economy of 

 the sea is to feed the young of such predaceous fishes as bluefish and mackerel. 

 North of Cape Cod the silverside is of no commercial value, being too small and too 

 soft to answer the never satisfied demand for bait for offshore fisheries, but on the 

 Rhode Island coast they are very generally used to bait eelpots, and they are excellent 

 as "whitebait." 



Fig. 87. — "Waxen silverside {Mevidia hcrylUna cerea) 



71. Waxen silverside {Menidia beryllina cerea Kendall) 

 Jordan and Evermann {Menidia gracilis), 1896-1900, p. 797. 



Bescripiion. — This species resembles the common silverside so closely in general 

 appearance that it would be apt to be overlooked among the schools of the latter 

 were it not paler in color and as a rule stouter bodied. A more dependable difference, 

 one which will always serve to separate the two, for which neither color nor form 

 can be relied upon, is that the anal fin is much shorter (only 15 or 16 rays) in the 

 waxen than in the common silverside. 



Color. — Described by Kendall (1902, p. 261) as "waxy, translucent, thickly 

 punctated with black on top of head and back, dots on edges of scales, excepting 

 those of throat, snout, and chin black from concentration of dots. " 



Size. — Smaller than nntata, the specimens described by Kendall being less than 

 2}4 inches long. 



General range. — Cape Cod to South Carolina. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Specimens reported by Kendall from Truro, 

 and from Sandwich in Cape Cod Bay remain the only records for this fish within the 

 Gulf of Maine, where it is apparently only a stray from warmer waters to the west 

 and south. At Woods Hole, where it is abundant, its habits are the same as those 

 of the common silverside, though it spawns somewhat later — that is, in June and July. 



