184 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



tail is deeply forked. The pointed pectorals are set very low down on the body 

 and there are no ventral fins. The scales are small, lying in cross series on the sides 

 of the body between numerous skin folds that run obliquely down and backward, 

 and there is a low ridge of skin on either side along the belly. 



Color. — Authors differ in their accounts of the colors of the sand eel, probably 

 because, as with most fish, its iridescent luster fades at death and because it varies 

 on different bottoms. Usuallj^ as we can bear witness, it is olive, brownish 

 or bluish green above with the lower sides silvery and the belly a duller white, 

 while there may or may not be a longitudinal stripe of steel blue iridescence " on 

 each side. The readiest field marks for the sand eel among Gulf of Maine fishes 

 are its slender form and sharply pointed snout, coupled with long dorsal fin 

 (separated, however, from the caudal) and the absence of ventral fins. The only 



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Fig. 89. — Adult sand launce {Ammodytes ainericanus) 



Fig. 90.— Larva of European A. tobianus, 6.6 mUlimeters. After Ehrenbaum and Strodtmann 



Fig. 91,— Larva of European A. tobianus, 20.5 millimeters. After Ehrenbaum and Strodtmann 



fishes with which one would be apt to confuse it are young eels, but in these dorsal, 

 caudal, and ventral fins are confluent, not separate, and the tail is rounded, not 

 forked. 



General range. — North American coast. Cape Hatteras to Labrador. Its 

 European relative occurs from Greenland, Iceland, northern Scandinavia, and the 

 White Sea south to Spain. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The sand eel is very plentiful along the coast 

 from Cape Cod to Cape Sable wherever there are sandy shores, but it is seldom seen 

 off the rocky parts of the coast line. Thus it is rather scarce in the Bay of Fundy 

 except locally, but is common on the sandy beaches that here and there break the 

 bolder northern shores of the Gulf, and swarms on the strands of Cape Cod Bay, a 

 peculiarity of distribution associated with its habits. Launce must be extremely 

 plentiful on Nantucket Shoals for many cod taken there by the Halcyon during 

 the last week of June, 1923, were packed full of them. There are also sand eels 



23 In the European sand launce (Amwodytes tobianus), according to Smitt (Scandinavian Fishes, 1892), the sides, especially 

 in young fish, are punctated with lines of tiny brown dots and the tip of the snout is blackish. 



