FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



Hole fishes; Halket's 8 Checklist of the fishes of 

 Canada and of Newfoundland, and Vladykov and 

 McKenzie's The Marine Fishes of Nova Scotia. 7 



The literature dealing with the habits of the 

 fishes of the Gulf of Maine is very extensive, for 

 most of the important commercial species, and 

 many of the others also, are common to both sides 

 of the North Atlantic. Among general European 

 manuals, Day's Fishes of Great Britain and Ire- 

 land, 8 Smitt's "Scandinavian Fishes," 9 and Ehren- 

 baum's summary of the many scattered accounts 

 of the eggs and larvae of northern fishes 10 have 

 been especially helpful. 



A large amount of information as to local dis- 

 tribution and abundance of various fishes has been 

 gleaned from unpublished material in the files of 

 the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as from 

 the fishery statistics published by the Fisheries 

 Branch, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (formerly 

 the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries), by the Dominion of 

 Canada, and by the Commonwealth of Massa- 

 chusetts. The superintendents of the Woods 

 Hole, Gloucester, and Boothbay hatcheries have 

 supplied much valuable information, as have other 

 members of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. 

 Among these, Leslie Scattergood has given many 

 interesting pieces of information for Maine waters, 

 while Howard Schuck has contributed authentic- 

 ity to the account of the haddock. Dr. A. G. 

 Huntsman has contributed his unpublished notes 

 on the fishes of the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence. Dr. A. H. Leim, Mr. R. A. McKen- 

 zie, and Dr. Vadim D. Vladykov have supplied us 

 with pertinent information on certain species from 

 the Nova Scotian-St. Lawrence River regions. 

 The late Prof. J. P. McMurrich permitted the 

 use of his unpublished plankton records, and a 

 number of Newfoundland records were furnished 

 by Drs. George W. Jeffers and E. Templeman. 



The late W. F. Clapp has contributed many 

 interesting notes gleaned during his experience as 

 a fisherman before entering the scientific field. 

 Harry Piers of the Provincial Museum of Halifax, 



• Checklist of the Fishes ot the Dominion of Canada and Newfoundland 

 1913, 138 pp. 



» Proc. Nova Scotia Inst, of Science, vol. 19, Pt. 1, 1935, pp. 17-113. 



» The fishes of Great Britain and Ireland, by F. Day, Text vol. 1, CXII+ 

 336 pp., vol. 2, 388 pp., and atlas, 179 plates, 1880-1884. London and Edin- 

 burgh. 



• A history of Scandinavian fishes. Second edition, vol. 1, 1892; vol. 2, 

 1895; 1,240 pp., 53 pis. Stockholm. 



10 Eier und Larven von Fischen. Nordisches Plankton, vol. I, 413 pp., 148 

 figs.; appeared in two parts as Lief. 4, 1905, and Lief. 10, 1919. 



has supplied interesting information on the occur- 

 rence of the blue shark. John Worthington has 

 furnished us with pound-records for the Truro- 

 Provincetown region covering a recent span of 

 about fifteen years and has given us specimens of 

 three species heretofore unreported in the Gulf of 

 Maine. Benjamin H. Morrow has supplied inter- 

 esting data from the vicinity of Sandwich, Mass. 

 We have received much information about the 

 striped bass in Nova Scotia from Major Howard 

 Scott, through the kind offices of Henry Lyman. 

 And we owe it to consultation with Dr. A. Vedel 

 Tuning; of the Marine Biological Laboratory, 

 Charlottenlund, Denmark, and the specimens 

 contributed by Dr. C. E. Lucas of the Scottish 

 Fisheries Laboratory, Aberdeen, that we have 

 dared to reach a conclusion as to the relationship 

 between the rosefish of our gulf and of north 

 European waters. Francis Sargent, also of the 

 Division of Marine Fisheries of Massachusetts, 

 and Henry Lyman, editor of the Salt Water 

 Sportsman, have been unfailing in their response 

 to our many inquiries. Myvanwy Dick of the 

 Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology has 

 been of assistance in the handling of certain of our 

 study material and in the preparation of a number 

 of illustrations. The illustrations of the hagfish 

 and lamprey and most of those of the sharks, 

 skates, rays, and chimaera are reprinted here 

 through the courtesy of the Sears Foundation for 

 Marine Research, publisher of the Fishes of the 

 Western Atlantic, Memoir 1, Parts 1 and 2, in 

 which the illustrations originally appeared. Claude 

 Ronne of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institu- 

 tion prepared many photographs from both 

 original and published drawings, which were used 

 to illustrate this book. 



We owe a debt of gratitude, also, to the late 

 Dr. Samuel Garman, who was ever ready with 

 assistance until the time of his death, and to 

 W. C. Adams, former director of the division of 

 fisheries and game of the State of Massachusetts. 

 We wish to express our hearty thanks to the many 

 commercial fishermen and to the many salt water 

 anglers of our acquaintance who have met our 

 inquiries in the most cordial way and who have 

 supplied us with a vast amount of first-hand 

 information on the habits, distribution, and 

 abundance of the commercial and game fishes, 

 which could be had from no other source. The 



