358 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



unknown function in the axil of each pectoral fin. We need only remark further 

 that the skin is covered with a thick layer of slimy mucus, making the toadfish as 

 loathsome a fish to handle as it is repulsive in appearance, and that there are no 

 scales, the teeth are large and blunt, and there are two short spines at the upper 

 angle of the gill cover, hidden, however, in the thick skin. 



Color. — The general ground tint ranges from dark m-uddy olive green to brown 

 or yellow, darker on back and sides, paler below, and variously and irregularly 

 marked with darker bars and marblings, which may be restricted to head and fins 

 or extend over the whole fish, belly as well as back. And the toadfish, like many 

 other bottom fishes, changes color to match the bottom on which it lies. 



Size. — Exceptionally 15 inches but seldom more than 12 inches long. 



General range. — Shoal water along the east coast of North America from Cape 

 Cod to Cuba, and casually northward to Maine. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Although the toadfish is very common about 

 Woods Hole and thence westward, like sundry other southern fishes it so rarely 

 ventures around Cape Cod that none of the fishermen in Massachusetts Bay of 

 whom we have inquired have seen or heard of it there, nor further north. In fact 

 there are only tliree definite records of it in the Gulf of Maine — "Maine,"" 

 Kittery(?), and Cohasset on the south shore of Massachusetts Bay, where one 

 (now in the collection of the Boston Society of Natural History) was caught by 

 Owen Bryant. 



Habits and food. — The toadfish lives in shoal water, is resident the year around 

 wherever found, and probably becomes torpid in winter in the northern part of its 

 range. It is commonest on sandj^ or muddy bottom, hiding among eelgrass or under 

 stones where it hollows out dens in which it lies in wait for prey. It is voracious 

 and omnivorous, Vinal Edwards's diet list for it at Woods Hole including blood 

 worms (Nereis), amphipods, shrimps, crabs, hermit crabs, a variety of moUusks 

 both imivalve and bivalve, ascidians, squid, and fish fry such as alewives, cunners, 

 mummichogs, menhaden, puffers, sculpins, scup, silversides, smelt, and winter 

 flounders. No doubt any small fish is acceptable. 



Toadfish often snap viciously when caught, and fight among themselves. Like 

 some sculpins they grunt, especially at night or if handled, and in spite of their 

 clumsy appearance can dart out of their hiding places and back again with sur- 

 prising speed. 



Breeding habits. — In the northern part of its range the toadfish spawns in June 

 and early July. The very lai^e eggs (about 5 mm. in diameter) are laid in holes 

 under stones, under lai^e shells, in old tin cans, among sunken logs, or among eel- 

 grass, where they adhere in a single layer to whatever serves as a nest, which the 

 male guards during the three weeks or so occupied by incubation. Even after hatch- 

 ing the tadpole-shaped larvae remain attached to the "nest" by the yolk sac until 

 the latter is absorbed, when, at a length of 15 to 16 mm., they break free. •* 



" Storer (1846a) gives no definite locality. 



'" Ryder (BuUetin, United States Fish Commission, Vol. VI, 1886 (1887), p. 8) and Gudger (Bulletin, United States Bureau 

 of Fisheries, Vol. XXVIII, 1909 (1910), pp. 1071-1109, Pis. CVII-CXIII) describe tlie breeding habits, eggs, and larvae of the 

 toadfish. For further accounts of its habits see Gill (Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, Vol. XLVHI, 1907 pp. 388-427.) 



