282 BULLETIN OP THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



rows of conical pointed teeth of various sizes in each jaw, the outer ones being very 

 stout. The body and gill covers are covered with large scales (in the tautog there 

 is a naked area in front of the gill opening) , and the skin is so tough that the fish 

 must be skinned before marketing. The dorsal fin (about 18 spines and 9 or 10 soft 

 rays) originates over the upper corner of the giU cover in front of the pectoral, and 

 runs back to the caudal peduncle. The first 4 or 5 rays of the dorsal fin are graduated, 

 the others are of about equal length, and the margin of the soft part is rounded. 

 The caudal is slightly convex with rounded corners. The anal (3 stout spines and 

 about 9 rays) originates under or behind the middle of the dorsal and corresponds 

 to the soft part of the latter in outline. The ventrals, and the pectorals, under or 

 slightly behind which they stand, are both of moderate size, and the latter are 

 rounded. 



Color. — To describe the color of the cunner is to list all the colors of the bottoms 

 on which it lives, it being one of the most variable of fishes. As a rule the upper 

 parts range between dark or reddish brown with a distinct bluish cast to blue 

 with brownish tinge, variously mottled wth blue, brown, and reddish. Some fish, 

 however, are uniform brown; fish caught over mud bottom are often very deep 

 sepia. In some situations they may be dull olive green mingled with blue, brown, 

 or rusty. Some cunners are slaty, but when they are living among red seaweeds 

 about rocks reddish or rusty tones are apt to prevail. Cunners caught in deep 

 water are often almost as red as the rosefish, and on the other hand we have seen 

 very pale ones, more or less speckled aU over with blackish dots, over sandy bottom. 

 In our experience (we have handled many hundreds) the belly is invariably of a 

 bluish cast, more or less vivid — sometimes whitish, sometimes dusky, sometimes 

 little paler than the sides. Some cunners have the lips and lining of the mouth 

 bright yeUow. Young fry are more or less dark-barred and blotched. 



Sise.— In the Gulf of Maine adult cunners average about 6 to 10 inches in 

 length and weigh less than half a pound. One foot long is very large, but occasion- 

 ally they are caught up to 15 inches long, and as heavy as 23^ pounds. 



General range. — -Atlantic coast of North America and the offshore banks from 

 Labrador and the Gulf of St. Lawrence south in abundance to New Jersey, and 

 occasionally as far as the mouth of Chesapeake Bay.*^ 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The cunner is perhaps our most familiar fish 

 and one to be found all around the shore line of the Gulf. In Massachusetts Bay 

 they are so numerous along the rocky shores and about ledges that no amount of 

 fishing seems to have any effect on their numbers. They are plentiful over soft 

 and sand bottoms as well, where (at Cohasset, for example), as one drifts along over 

 the fiats at low tide, he may see them swimming singly or in companies between 

 the patches of eelgrass. Thej' also swarm about the piles of wharves and under 

 floats in harbors, where they are the joy of small boys and even of older anglers. 

 Cunners run up into the deeper salt creeks, but we have never heard of them in 

 water appreciably brackish. The numbers of cunners vary widely from place to 

 place. The Massachusetts Bay region is perhaps the chief center of abundance 



" W. C. Schroeder, of the Bureau of Fisheries, informs us that he collected a cunner 69 mm. (about 2M inches) long at Cape 

 Charles, Va., on Sept. 23, 1921, which extends the range of this fish from New Jersey, as noted above. 



