FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



423 



the first part of May, as appears from the following table of cod-egg collections 

 supplied by the Gloucester hatchery: 



Season 



1911-12.. 

 1911-12.. 

 1912-13.. 

 1913-14.. 

 1914-15.. 

 1915-16.. 

 1916-17.. 

 1917-18.. 

 1918-19.. 

 1919-20.. 

 1920-21.. 



Collectiug field 



Plymouth 



Rockport (Ipswich Bay) 



Off Rockport (Ipswich Bay) . 

 Off Gloucester. 



In Ipswich Bay and ofl the New Hampshire coast. 



Off Gloucester. 



do 



do 



do 



Number of 

 eggs secured 



67,032,000 



170,840,000 

 91,980,000 

 82, 460. 000 

 145,630,000 

 92, 340, 000 

 119,020,000 

 249,510,000 

 570,740,000 

 210,040,000 



Spawning season 



Nov 

 Jan. 

 Feb. 

 Feb. 



Feb. 

 Feb. 

 Feb. 

 Feb. 

 Dec. 

 Jan. 



. 24 to Jan. 3. 

 20 to Mar. 1. 



16 to Apr. 7. 



1 to Apr. 15. 



9 to Apr. 13. 

 27 to Apr. 13. 

 25 to Apr. 27. 



27 to Apr. 30. 



28 to Apr. 30. 

 15 to Apr. 29. 



Mr. Corhss further comments as follows regarding the season of 1920: 



From January to late in the spring there was one of the largest schools of spawning fish on 

 the inshore fishing grounds ever known to present-day fishermen. 



Off the western coast of Maine, according to Capt. E. E. Hahn, superintendent 

 of the Boothbay Harbor hatchery, cod spawn from late February or early March 

 until the last of May, with the production of eggs at its peak in March, and from 

 March through May off the eastern Maine coast, while cod eggs (and hence spawn- 

 ing cod) have been recorded in spring in the Bay of Fundy. Thus it appears that 

 the cod spawns later and later in the year, following around the coast of the Gulf 

 of Maine from south and west to north and east. 



On Georges Bank cod spawn in abundance in February,"" March, and April, 

 and almost as many cod eggs as haddock eggs were fertilized there by the spawn 

 takers of the Bureau of Fisheries during the two latter months in 1919. It is not 

 known whether or in what abundance cod resort to Bro-vvns Bank for spawning. 



The records of the hatcheries just summarized tell when eggs are produced in 

 maximum abundance, but they throw little light on the limits of the spawning 

 season, for it is only during the period when ripe fish appear in numbers sufficient 

 to warrant the effort and expense that spawn taking is carried on on a large scale, 

 and with cod more than with any other gadoid occasional ripe individuals of both 

 sexes are seen long before and long after most of the other fish breed. Thus Earll 

 (1880, p. 713) writes that the first ripe female was taken near Cape Ann on 

 September 2 during the season of 1878-79, and that ripe fish, both males and 

 females, were occasionally caught thereafter. We have taken cod eggs, far enough 

 advanced in incubation for positive identification as such, off Shelbume (Nova 

 Scotia) on September 6, near Mount Desert on the 15th, and off Penobscot Bay on 

 October 6 (all in 1915). On the other hand Earll saw ripe fish as late as June, 

 proving that cod spawn more or less for nine months of the year about Cape Ann. 

 Our tow-nettings also suggest that some may even spawn in midsummer in the 

 coastal zone east of Cape Elizabeth, for among considerable numbera of eggs of the 

 appropriate size, but freshly spawned, and hence as likely to belong to the witch 



" This fact has long been common knowledge, and W. F. Clapp, formerly of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, has 

 seerunany cod with running eggs caught on Georges Bank in February and March. 



102274^25} 28 



