FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 455 



157. Spotted hake {Urophycis r egius W&lha.um) 



Jordan and Evermann, 1S96-1900, p. 2553. 



Description. — This species is distinguishable among the hakes of the Gulf of 

 Maine by the fact that there are no elongate rays in its first dorsal fin (which is 

 hardly higher than the second dorsal) , the fin rays are fewer in number than in either 

 white or squirrel hake (only about 8 and 43 dorsal and 40 anal, as against 9 and 

 about 57 dorsal and 48 to 50 anal), and that there are only 80 to 90 vertical rows of 

 scales from gill opening to caudal fin. Convenient field marks are that the pectoral of 

 the spotted hake reaches as far back as the origin of the anal, whereas in both white 

 and squirrel hakes it falls considerably short of the latter, and that its lateral line is 

 darker brown than the general body color, instead of paler, and interrupted by a 

 series of distinct whitish spots. Otherwise the spotted hake, like the commoner 

 hakes, is dull brown, darker above than below, "wdth vertical fins of the same color as 

 the back. The outer half of the first dorsal is black with wliitish margin, and the 

 ventrals are whitish. 



Fig. 226. — Spotted hake ( Urophycis regius) 



Size. — This is a smaller fish than the white hake (p. 446), the largest of many 

 measured by Welsh at Atlantic City (N. J.) in August, 1920, being only 16 inches 

 long and weigliing between 1 and IJ^ pounds. 



General range and occurrence in the Giilf of Maine. — The spotted hake is a more 

 southern species than the white or squirrel hakes — commonest off the Middle At- 

 lantic States — and though it is known off the coast of North America from Cape 

 Fear (N. C.) to Halifax (Nova Scotia), it so rarely strays north of Cape Cod that 

 specimens taken off Seguin Island many years ago still remain the only definite record 

 of it for the Gulf of Maine,^' wlule it is scarce even at Woods Hole. 



Habits. — The spotted hake resembles the other hakes in its habits, but appar- 

 ently it is more of a fish eater, for Vinal Edwards noted that the few he examined 

 at Woods Hole contained alewives, menhaden, launoe, and squid, but none of the 

 crustaceans on which the white and squirrel hake feed. The capture of spawning 

 fish by the Albatross off the coast of the Carolinas in December, 1919, recorded in 

 Welsh's field notes, is evidence that it is a winter breeder. 



" This species was also listed rrom Ipswich Bay, Casco Bay, and o3 Monhegan Island in the Qrampus collections of 1912 (Bul- 

 letin, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Uarvard College, Vol. LVIII, No. 2, 1914, p. 113), but it is probable that in reality 

 these specimens were white hake (p. 448) . 



102274—2.51 30 



