FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 183 



anal fins are almost naked (in most other American mullets they are scaled), but 

 the body and head are clothed with large rounded scales. 



Color. — Described as dark bluish above, the sides silvery, with a conspicuous 

 dark stripe along each row of scales; pale yellowish below, the yentrals yellowish 

 and the other fins dusky. 



Size. — In warmer waters the common mullet grows to a length of 2 feet, but 

 only small specimens have been found along our northern coasts. 



General range. — Both sides of the temperate Atlantic; from Cape Cod to Brazil 

 on the American coast; also along the west coast of America from Monterey 

 (Calif.) to Chili. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Mullets are locally common as far north 

 as Woods Hole, but so rarely do they stray past Cape Cod into the cooler waters 

 of the Gulf that there are but a half dozen records of them there, viz, at Freeport, 

 Harraseeket River, Clapboard Island, and Casco Bay in Maine, and at Essex ^° 

 and Provincetown in Massachusetts, each based on an odd fish only. Mullet 

 are more likely to visit the cool waters of the Gulf in late summer or early autumn 

 than at any other season. They have been known to winter as far north as New 

 York, hibernating in the mud, but it is not likely that the few strays that round 

 Cape Cod survive the cold season, nor is there any reason to suppose they ever 

 breed in the Gulf, for immature fish only are found at Woods Hole. 



THE SAND LAUNCES. FAMILY AMMODYTID.S 



The slender, round-bodied sand launces suggest small eels in general appearance. 

 Eel-like, too, they lack ventral fins and swim with eel-like undulations from side 

 to side. However, they are not even close relatives of the true eels, from which 

 they are distinguishable at a glance by the large forked caudal fin, separated by 

 a considerable space from both dorsal and anal, by the wide gill openings, and 

 by the presence of a lai'ge bony giU cover, not to mention other anatomic characters 

 equally important if less obvious. 



73. Sand laiince {Ammodytes americanus DeKay) -' 

 Sand eel; Launce; Lant 



Jordan and Evermann, 1890-1900, p. 833. 



Description.— The sand eel is a slender little fish, its body about one-tenth as 

 deep as the total length (not counting caudal fin), with long head and sharply- 

 pointed nose, wide gill opening, and large mouth with the lower jaw projecting far 

 bej'ond the upper. The jaws are toothless. There is one long low dorsal fin, soft 

 rayed (about 60 rays; no spines), rising somewhat in front of the tip of the pectoral 

 and running back along the whole length of the body nearly to the base of the 

 caudal. The ventral (about 2S rays), similar in outline and equallj- lacking spines, 

 originates slightly behind the middle of the dorsal and runs equally far back. The 



!o There is a specimen, so labeled, in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History. 



" Our sand eel is so closely allied to the common European launce (Ammodvta toiianui) that we doubt whether the distinc- 

 tion between the two— more slender form and longer head of americanus— wV^ stand the test of time. 



