324 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHEKIES 



The spawning season, both about Woods Hole and in north European waters, is 

 from November until February, with the chief egg production in December, and 

 no doubt this applies equally to the Gulf of Maine. At this season the adult 

 sculpins have been described as gathering in schools on sandy or weedy bottom, 

 with the females greatly outnumbering the males. Discussion has centered about 

 the manner of fertilization of the eggs, whether invariably external or sometimes 

 internal, it being generally agreed that they are fertilized externally as a rule but 

 that in parts of the Baltic they may be fertilized within the body of the mother. 

 In either case they are discharged in clumps, sink '^ and stick together in irregular 

 spongy masses through which the water circulates, and which retain considerable 

 moisture even if left bare by the ebbing tide, as often happens. These egg masses 

 are deposited on sandy bottom, in pools in the rocks, among seaweeds, or in any 

 crevice or hollow — a tin can, for instance, or an old shoe. Sometimes the male 

 makes a nest of seaweed and pebbles, while he has been described as sometimes 

 clasping the egg mass with his pectoral and ventral fins and has been photographed, 

 too, while so employed.'^ 



The eggs are of varying shades of red or yellow, 1.5 to 2 mm. in diameter. 

 Incubation is so slow (occupying 4 to 12 weeks, according to temperature) that 

 egg masses with advanced embryos have often been found as late in the spring as 

 April or even May. Newly hatched larvas are about 7 to 8 mm. in length. In a 

 month they are 10 mm. long and the yolk sac has been absorbed. The young 

 larvEe come to the surface, where quantities of them have been taken in tow nets 

 in British waters in March, April, and May. By May and June some have grown 

 to a length of 22 to 25 mm., and at about this size, or soon after, they abandon 

 their pelagic life for the bottom. By July they may be 38 mm. long and show all 

 the diagnostic characters of the adult.'* This time-table, compiled from European 

 sources, probably applies equally to the Gulf of Maine, for larvae are found as 

 early as February in the Bay of Fundy and thereafter throughout the spring.'^ 

 The subsequent rate of growth is not definitely known. Probably, however, this 

 sculpin is 2 or 3 inches long by the end of its first year and 4 to 5 inches by the end 

 of its second year, when a few are mature; but most of them, it seems, do not mature 

 until at least 6 inches long or 3 years old. 



Commercial importance. — Although this is an edible fish, and by account a good 

 one, its repulsive appearance and scavenging habits wiU probably close our markets 

 to it as long as better fish are plentiful. Nevertheless, it is of some commercial 

 importance, being one of the best baits for lobster pots, for which purpose great 

 numbers are speared locally in Massachusetts in spring and caught all along the 

 coast of the Gulf on hook and line. 



" Pelagic eggs taken in the tow net (Agassiz, 1882, pi. 3) belonged to some other fish. 



'! Ehrenbaum. Wissenschaftliche Meeresuntersuchungen, Helgoland, Neue Folge, Band 6, 1904, Taf. Vni. Kiel und 

 Leipzig. 



" Mcintosh and Masterman. The Life-Histories of British Marine Food-Fishes, 1897, p. 129. London. 

 " Buutsman, 1922a, p. 16. 



