376 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



however, is its best field mark, the pale olive or chocolate^' upper parts of the 

 present species, together with the dorsal and caudal fins, being thickly sprinkled 

 with blackish brown spots of varying size and irregular shape. 



Size. — Notwithstanding its Latin name this is fully as large a fish as the common 

 wolffish, said to grow to a length of 6 feet. 



General range. — Chiefly north of the Arctic Circle, south to Norway on the 

 eastern side of the North Atlantic and to Massachusetts Bay on the western side. 



Occurrence in the Oulf of Maine. — Goode and Bean's (1879, p. 11) statement 

 that " the Fish Commission has specimens from off the mouth of Gloucester 

 Harbor and from Eastport, Me.," long remained the only notice of this northern 

 fish in the Gulf of Maine, but Walter Rich, of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries, has 

 recently obtained a specimen taken in 35 fathoms off Cape Elizabeth and now in the 

 collection of the Portland Society of Natural History. Shore fishermen of whom 

 we have inquired have either never seen it or fail to discriminate between it and the 

 common wolffish (this is hardly likely, so striking is its color pattern), though 

 vessel fishermen are familiar with it in more northern waters. Nor did Huntsman 

 hear of it in the Bay of Fundy. In short, this side of Cape Sable it is only an 

 accidental waif from its Arctic home, one to be watched for but hardly expected." 



Habits. — Very little is known of its habits except that its diet is much the same 

 as that of its more common relative, and it is said to keep to rather deeper waters, 

 having been caught as deep as 200 to 240 fathoms off Banquereau."" 



THE EELPOUTS. FAMILY ZOARCID.^ 



The eelpouts are elongate eel-like fishes with the anal fin continuous with the 

 caudal. In most members of the family the dorsal joins the caudal equally, making 

 one continuous fin extending around the tip of the tail, but in the only common 

 Gulf of Maine species the rear portion of the dorsal is so low that there is apparently 

 a bare space between it and the caudal. Eelpouts are readily separable from the 

 true eels by the presence of ventral fins, small but unmistakable, situated slightly 

 in advance of the pectorals. Their closest affinities among Gulf of Maine fishes are 

 with the blennies (p. 359), the wolffishes (p. 370), and the wrymouths (p. 368), but 

 they are easily separable from the blennies and wiymouths by the fact that at least 

 the major part of the dorsal fin is soft rayed, not spiny, and from the wolffish by 

 their more slender form and smaller teeth. 



KEY TO GULF OF MAINE EELPOUTS 



1. The dorsal fin is apparently separated from the caudal by a considerable gap.-Eelpout, p. 378 

 Dorsal, caudal, and anal fins together form one uninterrupted fin 2 



2. Extremely elongate, at least 12 times as long as deep Wolf eel, p. 382 



Only about 8 times as long as deep Arctic eelpout, p. 383 



^ The general ground tint has been variously described. 

 - " Qoode's statement that it has been seen in the Bay of Fundy (Goode, et al., 1384) apparently refers to the Eastport record 

 just mentioned. 



" Bean, 1881, p. 82. 



