388 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



catch, for although a demand for it has recently arisen the market is still so uncertain 

 that multitudes are often thrown away. Silver hake are usually most plentiful 

 between Cape Cod and Casco Bay, with Cape Cod Bay perhaps the chief center of 

 abundance. Great numbers are caught all along the eastern coast of Maine and 

 at the mouth of the Bay of Fund)" in autumn. 



The schedules of catches from the otter-trawl investigations of 1913 afford 

 the only available data on the numerical strength of silver hake on Georges Bank 

 with relation to other fish, nor can these be held conclusive because this gear is 

 not as well suited to the capture of such an active mid-water species as of the more 

 lethargic ground fish, hence probably understate it. So far as they go, however, 

 the records suggest not only that silver hake are much less plentiful than haddock 

 on the bank, the average catches per trip (April to September) being about 14,000 

 individuals of the latter and only about 1,800 of the former, but that it is less 

 regular, for several trips missed them altogether. 



The silver hake, like the mackerel, is strictly a summer fish in the Gulf of Maine, 

 sometimes appearing in the Massachusetts Bay-Cape Ann region as early as the 

 last week in March and regularly striking there by May. In 1913 (a fairly repre- 

 sentative season) Welsh saw odd fish in Ipswich Bay in March and April, 

 considerable numbers in May, and an abundance was seined there in June, which 

 may be taken as typical for the whole coast line of the Gulf south of Portland. 

 This applies equally to Georges Bank, where in 1913 the first silver hake were taken 

 by the otter trawlers from April 27 to 29 and on almost every trip thereafter. 

 We have not been able to learn how early silver hake appear on the coast of Maine 

 east of Portland, or off western Nova Scotia, where it is only within the past few 

 years that any attention has been paid them; but this certainly happens by the 

 end of May, for Huntsman says they are to be found in summer in the Bay of 

 Fundy. They vanish from the coastwise waters and from the offshore banks alike 

 sometime late in the autumn. General report and my own experience is that 

 November sees the last of them in Massachusetts Bay, and while they linger on 

 Georges Bank until well into December (latest catch December 3 to 12 in 1913) 

 none were reported there during the last half of that month or in January, February, 

 or March during 1913. 



There is no reason to doubt that this appearance in spring and the correspond- 

 ing disappearance from the northern parts of its range in autumn is the visible 

 evidence of an actual and widespread seasonal migration. Essentially this is a 

 vernal movement inshore into shoal water and an offshore journey into deeper 

 water for winteiing, but for such fish as visit the inner parts of the Gulf of Maine 

 this necessarily entails a considerable north and south journey as well, for it is 

 probable that silver hake do not winter in the deep basin of the Gulf but with- 

 draw from it altogether at the approach of cold weather. The European silver 

 hake performs a corresponding immigration into the North Sea in early summer 

 and emigrates out again in autumn. However, the parallel is not complete, for 

 while the North Sea serves chiefly as a feeding ground for the spent fish, the Gulf 

 of Maine is an important spav/Tiing area; and while hosts of silver hake repair 

 thither and to its offshore banks, other multitudes summer on the continental 



