FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 367 



white). The caudal is crossbarred with 3 or 4 series of dark dots and the dorsal 

 with many tiny dark dots besides the blotch just mentioned. The sides of the head 

 are described as marked with a dark bar running obliquely downward and backward 

 from the eye, but this is not visible in the preserved specimens we have examined. 



Size. — The largest one we have seen or found record of is 5^ inches long, but the 

 maximum size may well be larger. 



General range. — So far this fish is known only off the boreal coasts of eastern 

 North America from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Cape Cod, and there are few 

 records of it. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This shanny, first described by Storer (1853- 

 1867, p. 93), who saw one "found at an unusually low tide among the seaweed at 

 Nahant (in Massachusetts Bay) in 1838," was long supposed to be very rare and 

 is so described by Jordan and Evermann as recently as 1898, but it has since proved 

 to be common in the Bay of Fundy ^' among seaweed on rocky shores, a number 

 having been taken both at Campobello Island and at Grand Manan, and one in 

 the mouth of the St. Croix River, as Doctor Huntsman records in his notes (p. 9). 

 He also reports it from St. Mary Bay on the Nova Scotia shore, while we have 

 seen examples taken many years ago at Grand Manan. It has likewise been 

 reported at Matinicus Rock and in Casco Bay on the coast of Maine, while we 

 trawled one near Seguin Island and another in Massachusetts Bay, in 27 and 25 

 fathoms, respectively, on the Grampus in 1912, and caught its larvje in tow nets 

 near Seal Island (Nova Scotia), in the Grand Manan Channel, at the mouth of Casco 

 Bay, near Cape Porpoise, off the Isles of Shoals, near Cape Ann, and in Massachu- 

 setts Bay. All this suggests that it is widespread in the coastal zone of the Gulf, 

 but apparently more plentiful in the northeast than in the southwest part, which 

 suggests a preference for comparatively low temperatures. 



Habits. — Nothing is known of the mode of life of this shanny except that it 

 lives among seaweed and stones from low tide mark down at least to 30 fathoms, 

 and very hkely much deeper. It is a bottom fish hke other blennies and, as Doctor 

 Huntsman writes in his notes, "is found under stones near low tide mark" with 

 the rock eel, but far less abundantly and only on the more exposed shores. Cornish ^' 

 hkewise describes it as taken under stones on the beach, as well as in the dredge and 

 trawl in 6 to 30 fathoms at Canso, Nova Scotia. 



The eggs have never been seen, but the fact that we have taken larvte as smaU 

 as 8 to 11 mm. in June, July, and October ^* points to a breeding season lasting 

 from late spring throughout the summer (supposing om* identification to be correct) . 



» Huntsman, 1922a, p. 18. 



" Further Contributions to Canadian Biology, 1902-1905 (1907), p. 87. In 39th Annual Report of the Department ot Marine 

 anij Fisheries (of Canada), 1906, Fisheries Branch. 



28 These larvae are listed in Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, Vol. LVIII, No. 2, 1914, p. 

 109; and Vol. LIX, 1917, p. 273. 



