444 BX7LLETIN OF THE BTJEEALT OF FISHERIES 



The haddock, like the cod, is a very prohfic fish for its size. Earll (1880) esti- 

 mated the number of eggs in a female of 193^ inches at 169,050, with 634,380 in a 9 ^- 

 pound fish and 1,839,581 in one 28J^ inches long and weighing 9 pounds 9 ounces. 

 At a temperature of 37° incubation occupies 15 days, and 13 days at 41° — a fair 

 average for eggs spawned in the Gulf of Maine. The newly hatched larva is about 

 4 mm. long, with the vent close behind the yolk sac and at the base, not the margin, 

 of the ventral fin fold, thus apparently ending blind. It resembles a cod so closely 

 that the two would be indistinguishable were it not that the post-anal pigment of 

 the haddock is arranged in a row along the ventral sm-face of the trunk from vent 

 to tip of tail and not in bands as it is in cod and American poUock, while the dorsal 

 wall of the body cavity is Ukewise densely pigmented, the arrangement of the 

 larval pigment serving to differentiate the little haddock until it is about 12 mm. 

 long. In water of 41° the yolk sac is absorbed in about 10 daj's when the little 

 fish is about 5.5 mm. long, the dorsal and anal fin rays appear at about 11 mm., 

 these fins are fully formed at 16 to 20 mm., and at 30 to 40 mm. the young haddock 

 begin to take on the general aspect of the adult. Fry of 20 to 30 mm. are easUy 

 distinguished from both cod and pollock by their pale pigmentation and bj- the 

 greater height of the first dorsal fin. 



154. Blue hake (Antimora viola Goode and Bean) 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 2544. 



Description. — This species resembles the white and squirrel hakes in the form 

 of its body and in the presence of two separate dorsal fins, the first very short and 

 the second very long; but it is readily distinguished from them by the fact that the 

 anal fin is so deeply notched about midway of its length that there are apparently 

 two separate fins, and that each ventral fin is 6-rayed though with the second ray 

 elongate and filamentous. The form of the snout, which is flattened above, keeled 

 at the sides, and roimded at the tip, is likewise distinctive. The vent is situated 

 much farther back than in the true hakes (genus Urophycis) , and the color is deep 

 violet or blue black. 



Occurrence. — The blue hake has been reported at so many localities on the 

 continental slope off southern New England, eastward to the Grand Banks, that 

 it must be one of the most plentiful of fishes there at 350 to 1,000 fathoms. Halibut 

 fishermen have occasionally brought it in, but it has not been taken within the 

 limits of the Gulf of Maine and is hardly to be expected there, the shoalest capture 

 recorded so far being from 306 fathoms. 



