450 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



up estuaries all around the Gulf from Massachusetts Bay on the one side to the 

 Bay of Fundy on the other, as well as offshore; but the larger fish usually keep to 

 deeper water, especially in summer, when hake of marketable sizes are most plentiful 

 below 20 fathoms, and when few large ones are caught in less than 10 fathoms of 

 water. But this rule, like most others, has its exceptions. For instance, I saw a 

 white hake of about 8 pounds taken from a float in Northeast Harbor, Me., in 

 about 10 feet of water in July, 1922. On the other hand, hake are to be caught 

 in the deepest parts of the Gulf, and white hake have been taken down to 304 fathoms 

 on the offshore slope of Georges Bank. 



A more or less regular inshore movement of hake is said to take place in autumn, 

 especially in the northeastern part of the Gulf, resulting in the capture of consider- 

 able numbers in the deeper muddy harbors and bays east of Penobscot Bay during 

 the winter. They not only enter St. John Harbor during autumn, but run up the 

 St. John River to Kennebecasis Bay, where they are caught all winter through 

 the ice, and they carry out corresponding in and off shore movements off southern 

 New England, to which the appearance of goodly numbers in shoal water at Woods 

 Hole in autumn bears witness. On the other hand, they enter Passamaquoddy Bay 

 in early summer, to depart in autumn. Probably the truth is that the adults are 

 cool-water fish and are barred from the shallows in summer by high temperature, but 

 that the low summer temperature allows them to summer in Passamaquoddy Bay. 

 Their departure thence in autumn has not yet been accounted for. Except for 

 these in and off shore movements and for the involuntary migrations of the larvae and 

 for young fry while living at the surface, hake are resident throughout the year 

 in the open Gulf of Maine wherever found, and they are much more stationary than 

 either cod or haddock. 



Food. — Less is known of the diet of the hakes than of cod, haddock, or pollock. 

 However, it is certain that they are not shell eaters to any extent, for it is seldom 

 that their stomachs contain even the smaller univalves or bivalves, and so far as 

 we know no one has ever found large mollusks, echinoderms, nor any of the large 

 hard-shelled crustaceans (e. g., rock crabs or lobsters), in a hake. The stomach 

 contents so far recorded " show that prawns (Pandalus) , shrimps, amphipods, and 

 other small Crustacea which they find on the bottom are their chief dependence at 

 most times and localities. They also feed as greedily on squid as do others of the 

 cod tribe, while a variety of small fish have been found in hake stomachs at Woods' 

 Hole," among them alewives, butterfish, cunners, eels, flatfish, tautog, herring, 

 mackerel, menhaden, launce, silversides, silver hake, sculpins, sea robins, smelt, 

 and tomcod. They bite fish bait readily — in fact the greater part of the catch is 

 taken on line trawls baited with herring. They also take clams on the hook greedily 

 enough. 



i« Goode, et al. (1884), Kendall (1898, p. 180), Linton (Bulletin, United States Fish Commission,Vol. XIX, 1899 (1901), p. 478), 

 Hansen (Proceedings, U. S. National Museum, vol. 48, 1915, p. 94), Breder (Zoologica (New York), Vol. II, No. 15, August 

 15, 1922, p. 350) and Vinal Edwards's notes. 



1^ A large white hake taken at Woods Hole in May, 1908, had a fish (Lepophidium) encysted in the wall of its body cavity, 

 it having no doubt penetrated the hake's stomach after it had been swallowed (Bulletin, U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, Vol. XXXI, 

 Pa.rt II, 1911 (1913), p. 708). 



