FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 369 



Size. — Maximum length about 3 feet. 



General range. — Coast of North America from Labrador to Long Island Sound. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Published records locate this fish in the 

 Bay of Fundy, at Eastport, in Casco Bay, at Portland, in the mouth of the Piscata- 

 qua River, at Gloucester, in Marblehead Harbor, at Swampscott, Nahant, Dor- 

 chester in Boston Harbor,^" and in the outer waters of Massachusetts Baj', localities 

 sufficiently scattered to show that it is to be found all along the coasts of the Gulf. 

 However, it seems to be rare, or at least very local, everywhere. We have neither 

 caught the adult nor have we seen it brought in by fishing boats. In fact, few 

 of the fishermen of whom we have inquired have been aware of its existence, a 

 fact no doubt associated with its burrowing habit; but in May, 1915, and March 

 and April, 1920, we towed its late larvte and fry (a total of 11 specimens ranging 

 in length from 18 to 40 mm.) off Boston Harbor in Massachusetts Bay, near Mount 

 Desert Island, over Jeffrey Bank off Penobscot Bay, in the trough near the Isles of 

 Shoals, in the western basin a few miles west of Cashes Ledge, and in the deep 

 basin off Machias, Me. 



Habits. — Very little was known of its habits, except that it was a bottom fish 

 living from the intertidal zone down to considerable depths (where it is sometimes 

 taken on line trawls in the Bay of Fundy), until recently, but in 1910 and again in 

 1920 Willey and Himtsman (1921, p. 4) found fullgrown wrymouths living in burrows 

 in the mud on the flats at the mouth of the Magaguadavic River, a tributary of 

 Passamaquoddy Bay. These burrows, to quote from their account, "were found in 

 very soft mud from the lower part of the Fucus zone downward; that is, as far up 

 as 4 feet above low-water mark, " and " each system of burrows, inhabited by only 

 one fish, consisted of branching tunnels about 5 cm. in diameter and from 3 to 8 

 cm. below the surface, " originating from a more or less centrally placed mound in 

 which was the main entrance, with other smaller openings along the tunnels and at 

 their terminations. 



It seems that the burrowing instinct is strong, for one fish kept in a tank con- 

 stantly inhabited a piece of hard rubber tubing. Hence it is probable that wry- 

 mouths in other parts of the Gulf likewise live in burrows or perhaps under stones, 

 and apparently they are as apt to be inshore in shoal water in winter as in summer, 

 for one was speared in Marblehead Harbor in December many years ago.'" 



Food. — Huntsman and Willey found "beach fleas" or "sand-hoppers" (Gam- 

 marus), shrimps (Crago), and fragments of winter flounders in several wrymouths 

 which they opened, and the one kept in captivity readily ate sand-hoppers, hermit 

 crabs, small herring, and mollusks such as limpets, periwinkles, whelks, clams, and 

 mussels. Apparently it located food as much by sight as by smell.^' 



Breeding habits. — Ripe wrymouths are yet to be seen; but the presence of the 

 larvae early in spring in Passamaquoddy Bay, as reported by Huntsman, with the 

 seasonal occui'rence of the fry just mentioned, proves it a winter spawner in 

 the Gulf of Maine, though it may breed later in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for 



» A specimen given Storer by Dr. Henry Bryant. 



30 Putnam, 1874, pp. 11-13. 



" Willey and Huntsman (1921) also give interesting data on its respiration and response to various stimuli. 



