392 BULLETIN OF THE BUEEAU OF FISHEKIES 



The silver hake spawns here and there along the entire coastal zone from Cape 

 Cod to Grand Manan, as proven by the locations of the egg catches (fig. 195), but 

 apparently it does not breed successfully on the northern side of the Bay of Fundy 

 where neither its eggs nor its fry have ever been found. The observations related 

 below (p. 393), suggest that it is the low surface temperature of this locality that 

 prevents its successful reproduction there, but the capture of a few eggs in Petit 

 Passage in our tow nets on June 10, 1915, suggests that it, like the cunner, may 

 spawn on the southern side of the bay. Tliere is no positive evidence at hand 

 that it breeds along the west coast of Nova Scotia, but this is to be expected ; and 

 its presence in abundance on Georges Bank throughout the summer is also pre- 

 sumptive evidence of local spawning, though we have taken no silver hake eggs or 

 larvae there. 



The silver hake that spawn within the Gulf of Maine do so chiefly in water 

 shoaler than 50 fathoms, corresponding in this to our other numerically important 

 gadoids, whereas the Eureopean silver hake usually spawns in 50 to 100 fathoms. 

 We made one rich haul of its eggs in the center of the eastern basin, which need be 

 no surprise, the silver hake being more pelagic in its habits than the cod tribe and 

 wandering far and wide in pursuit of prey. The discovery of ripe as well as of green 

 and spent fish in depths as great as 300 fathoms off southern New England (p. 389), 

 and of its eggs outside the continental slope off Nova Scotia by the Canadian Fish- 

 eries Expedition, ^° prove that it spawns over deep water as well as in shoal water. 



The silver hake of British waters congregate on certain definite banks to spawn. 

 Whether our American fish does the like is yet to be learned, but judging from its 

 wandering habits it is not likely to be as select in its choice as is the haddock, for 

 example. The sloping sandy bottom around the northern extremity and off the 

 eastern slope of Cape Cod is evidently an important center of reproduction, for 

 not only did we find an abundance of eggs off Race Point on July 7, 1915, but our 

 tow nets yielded swarms of young larvae and many eggs at two stations off the outer 

 side of the cape on July 22 of the following year, with the fish still spawning there 

 a month later, as proved by the presence of eggs. Other localities where we have 

 taken silver hake eggs in large numbers are off Duck Island near Mount Desert 

 on July 19 and August 18, 1915; near Monhegan Island, August 4, 1915; off Wooden 

 Ball Island near the mouth of Penobscot Bay on August 6, 1915; and off Rye, 

 New Hampshire, on July 23 of that same year; but we have never found them in 

 any number in Massachusetts Bay though odd eggs have been taken there on sev- 

 eral occasions (fig. 195). Unfortunately no quantitative hauls were made at any 

 of the more productive egg stations, hence the number of silver hake eggs actually 

 present in the water can not be approximated, and our general experience has been 

 that vertical hauls with small nets are of little use for fish eggs when there are less 

 than 50 or so of the latter per square meter of sea surface. But the vertical net 

 yielded about 190 per square meter at the eastern basin station just mentioned, 

 where eggs also occurred in fair number in the horizontal hauls. 



'» Dannevig. Canadian Fisheries Expedition, 1914-15 (1919), p. 28. 



