FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 307 



many as haddock); 11,592 (nearly as many as haddock) at about the same locality 

 in the three days, October 10 to 13; 4,267 during a four-day trip to the South 

 Channel, from October 23 to 27; and 12,191 in the same general locality in six 

 days two weeks later (November 9 to 15). During the year in question rosefish 

 formed 1.8 per cent of the total catch of fish of all kinds by several trawlers oper- 

 ating on Georges Bank during the months June to December, and 5.9 per cent in 

 South Channel, which is a better index to the relative abimdance of the fish than the 

 annual landings from the Banks (30,000 to 50,000 pounds in 1915), for the larger 

 part of the catch is thrown away because the market will not absorb it. 



In 1913 not a single rosefish was scheduled for Georges Bank between December 

 1 and mid June,"* with all the largest catches occurring in September, October, and 

 November, but inasmuch as all the winter trips were to the eastern, southeastern, 

 and central parts of the bank, all the trips reporting large hauls of the fish either 

 to its western and northwestern portions or to the South Channel, the precise locality 

 where fishing was carried on and not the time of year may have been the factor 

 governing whether rosefish were caught or not. Seeing that 1,400 were caught on 

 April 4 on Brown's Bank in two sets of a line trawl, we doubt whether there is 

 any periodicity in the presence of rosefish on these offshore grounds. 



Rosefish inhabit a wide range of temperature. The maximimi may be set at 

 about 48° to 50°, and probably it is the seasonal warming of the surface 

 stratum that drives them to summer in deep water off the coasts of Maine and 

 Massachusetts, whereas the low surface temperature of parts of the Bay of Fimdy, 

 where the upper 10 fathoms or so may be as cool as 50° even in midsummer, allows 

 them to remain in shoal water there the year round as just noted (p. 306) . At 

 the other extreme they winter in Massachusetts Bay and in Passamaquoddy Bay 

 in water as cold as 33° to 35°, and perhaps colder, though they could easily escape 

 from these low temperatures by a short offshore migration. In fact, the rosefish 

 has often been described as an "Arctic" species, but while this is true to the extent 

 that its range extends to Arctic Seas, we are convinced that this is a misnomer if 

 taken to mean that it is characteristic of Polar temperatures, the records of its 

 occurrence, horizontal and bathymetric, proving that though it is able to survive 

 any temperature down to freezing when adult, the great majority of rosefish inhabit 

 waters warmer than, say, 35°, and over the greater part of their geographic range. 



The distribution of this fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence is especially instructive 

 in this respect, for there it is characteristic of the comparatively warm water (39° to 

 42°) in the bottom of the deep channels, °* not of the icy intermediate layer (about 

 32°) which, generally spealdng, is so nearly an impassible barrier to its upward 

 migration that it is seldom if ever taken on the shoal banks. Its bathymetric 

 range in relation to temperature is apparently much the same off the west coast of 

 Greenland. Here Fabricius "" long ago described it as confined to water so deep 

 that when one accidentally comes to the surface it is "poke blown" and dies, while 

 Jensen," who has recently published an interesting study of the rosefish in Greenland 



*' This takes account only of the vessels that carried observers from the Bureau of Fisheries. 



" Huntsman, 1918a, p. 63. 



'• Fauna Groenlandica, 1780, pp. 167-169. 



" Videnskabelige Meddelelser fra Dansk naturhistorisk Forening i Kj0benhavn, Bind 74, 1922, pp. 89-109. 



