244 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHEEIES 



Size. — Maximum length 10 to 12 inches but most of those seen are smaller. 



General range. — Atlantic coast of North America, Cape Hatteras to Nova 

 Scotia; most abundant south of Cape Cod. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Although the barrelfish is rather common along 

 the outer coast of Nova Scotia on the one hand, and even more so off Woods Hole 

 and thence westward along the southern New England coast on the other, it is so 

 rare a fish within the Gulf of Maine that we have never seen it there ourselves, nor 

 has Doctor Kendall found it on his various collecting trips along the Maine coast. 

 In fact the only definite GuK of Maine records we have been able to find are one from 

 Boston Harbor, one from Salem, one from Annisquam, and one vaguely described 

 as from the fishing banks off the coast of Maine. Our own experience with this fish 

 is limited to a single occasion, south of Nantucket, when several were seen about a 

 drifting box. They owe their common name to their habit of congregating about 

 floating spars and planks or any drifting wreckage, or inside of barrels or boxes, 



Fig. 114.— Barrelfish (Palinurichthys percijormis). After DeKay 



where it is easy to catch them in dip nets. Off southern New England they are often 

 found in gulfweed. They sometimes gather about slow-moving vessels, and so 

 closely do they cling to these refuges that one has even been known to cross the 

 Atlantic to Penzance Harbor, in Cornwall, presumably drifting in the packing case 

 in which it was found. 



Food. — Barrelfish feed on the sundry small crustaceans, barnacles, hydroids, 

 young squids, small moUusks, and Salpje which they find near or attached to their 

 floating homes; likewise on ctenophores and on fish fry, the diet lists of specimens 

 taken at Woods Hole including herring, mackerel, menhaden, launce, scup, and 

 silversides.'" Sometimes they contain seaweed, but we suspect this is eaten for 

 the animals attached to it and not from a vegetarian taste. 



Habits. — Nothing is known of the breeding habits of the barrelfish. 



" Vinal Edwards's notes. 



