246 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This is a regular summer visitor to the 

 Gulf of Maine, locally common along the shores of Massachusetts and Maine; 

 common, also, on the Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy but appearing only 

 irregularly and in small numbers on the New Brunswick shore, though it has been 

 taken repeatedly in Passamaquoddy Bay. 



The numbers of butterfish diminish, passing from west to east along the northern 

 coast hne of the GuK, as is illustrated by the fact that in 1919, a fairly representative 

 year, more than 180,000 pounds were caught in Plymouth and Barnstable Counties 

 (both sides of Cape Cod), 20,000 pounds along the short coast line of Essex County, 

 Mass., and about 31,000 pounds thence to and including the Casco Bay region, 

 which seems to be a regular center of abimdance for it, but less than 1,000 pounds 

 between Casco Bay and Penobscot Bay. So few were taken east of the latter, 

 in spite of the many weus maintained along that part of the coast for the sardine 

 fishery, that none were mentioned thence in the fishery statistics for the year in 

 question. 



^^^•> 



Fig. 115.— Butterfish (.Poronolus triacanthui) 



Butterfish also appear on Georges Bank in smnmer, sometimes in comparative 

 abundance, and about 1,000 fish were taken there during one trawling trip in 1913; 

 but although they are said to be common as far east as Canso " (hence probably 

 all along the outer coast of Nova Scotia), we have heard no rumor of them on 

 Browns Bank, nor are they known to occur in the central deeps of the Gulf of 

 Maine. 



Season. — Butterfish usually appear off Rhode Island by the middle or end of 

 April and are seen about Woods Hole as early as the middle of May, but they are 

 not abundant there until a month later, nor do they appear in Massachusetts Bay 

 in any numbers until well into June, and it is not untU the end of that month or 

 the first part of July that they are plentifiil anywhere north of Cape Cod. They 

 stay, in the Gulf of Maine all summer, to disappear thence in autumn. Probably 

 they leave its northern parts earlier than they do its southern parts, and though 



" Cornish. Contributions to Canadian Biology, 1902-1905 (1907), Ottawa. 



