452 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



growth of older squirrel hake in the Bay of Fundy has been studied by Craigie 

 (1916, p. 87), his conclusions from scale studies,^' combined with measurements, 

 being as follows: 



Average length, 

 inches 



l-jear-old male 7. 9 



1-year-old female 8. 3 



2-year-old male 13 



2-year-old female 14. 2 



3-year-old male 16. 1 



3-year-old female 18. 5 



The rate of growth is so uniform during the first three years of life, that spawn- 

 ing (an event so exhausting that it slows the growth of any fish) probably does not 

 take place until the fourth year. Nothing definite is known of the rate of growth 

 of the white hake, but it is fair to assume that it grows faster than the squirrel, to 

 attain so much greater length and weight. 



Breeding habits. — Practically nothing is known of the breeding habits of the 

 white hake, but Welsh's examination of fish caught near Gloucester led him to 

 conclude that spawning takes place in fall and winter and occasionally as late as 

 April (he saw a male with the milt flowing on April 22, 1913).^° The egg is no 

 doubt pelagic like that of the squirrel hake (p. 453), but no ripe females, eggs, or 

 young larvae have ever been seen. 



Up to the simimer of 1912 we were equally ignorant of the spawning and early 

 stages of the squirrel hake. In that July, however, we trawled squirrel hake with 

 running spawn and milt in Ipswich Bay, fertilizing the eggs on board the Grampus 

 and thus identifying eggs taken in abundance in the tow as this species. Since 

 that time large numbers of squirrel-hake eggs have been fertilized artificially and 

 hatched at the Gloucester hatchery. 



The height of the spawning season of this species falls in early summer in the 

 Massachusetts Bay region and at least as early as June south of Cape Cod, judging 

 from the size (27 to 70 mm.) of the fry just mentioned as found in scallop shells in 

 late summer and autumn (p. 449) . The extreme limits of the season are not known, 

 but we have towed eggs of this species as early as June 10 (in Petit Passage) and as 

 late as September 20 in various parts of the Gulf, while captures of fry of 72 mm. as 

 early as the last week in July (in Shelburne Harbor) and others as small as 36 

 mm. in the western part of the Gulf as late as November 1 (in 1916), similarly 

 point to a breeding season lasting from late spring until early autumn. 



The localities where we have found eggs, provisionally identified as squirrel 

 hake in the tow (fig. 223) , show that it spawns all around the Gulf from Cape Cod 

 to Nova Scotia, and in spite of its rather deep-water habitat and preference for soft 

 bottom most of these egg stations, like those for the other common gadoids, are in 

 shoal water near the coast, a haul in the eastern basin, which yielded both squirrel 

 hake and silver hake eggs (p. 392) being the only exception. This, of course, points 

 to a migration from the basins into shoaler water for spawning, but our records are 



** Unfortunately hake scales do not show the annual rings as clearly as those of cod and haddock. 

 ^ Tracy (1910, p. 157) is also of the opinion that this hake is a winter spawner. 



