FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



109 



tents of fish from the Nova Scotia Coast of the 

 Bay of Fundy examined by Willey " consisted 

 chiefly of the copepod genera Arcatia and Temora 

 with other smaller ones, of mysid shrimps and of 

 the larval stages of barnacles; while Leim M found 

 that the shad in the open Bay of Fundy feed 

 chiefly on copepods and mysids. Shad are also 

 known to feed as greedily on the pelagic euphausiid 

 shrimps as herring do, on fish eggs, and even on 

 bottom dwelling amphipods, showing that they 

 forage near the ground at times. 



Occasionally they eat small fish, but these are 

 only a minor item in their general diet." Shad, it 

 appears, take little or no food just prior to spawn- 

 ing. But they will often take an artificial fly, or a 

 live minnow when running upstream to spawn. 1 

 During the past few years, crowds of anglers have 

 caught many on flies in the Connecticut River, 

 and doubtless could in the few Gulf of Maine 

 streams to which shad still repair (p.l 10) . 



Reproduction and growth. 2 — The sexually mature 

 fish enter the streams in spring or early summer 

 when the river water has warmed to 50° to 55°. 

 Consequently the shad run correspondingly later 

 in the year passing from south to north along the 

 coast, commencing in Georgia in January; in 

 March in the waters tributary to Pamlico and 

 Albemarle Sounds; in April in the Potomac; and 

 in May and June in northern streams generally 

 from the Delaware to Canada. In the Kennebec, 

 according to Atkins, 3 the first shad appear (or did) 

 late in April, with the main run in May and June; 

 the first ripe females are caught the last week in 

 May and they begin to spawn about June 1, most 

 of them doing so during that month, a few in July, 

 and possibly an occasional fisb as late as August. 

 Probably these dates applied equally to the Merri- 

 mac in the good old days when shad were plentiful 

 there, but the season is somewhat later in the St. 

 John, also in the Shubenacadie as might be ex- 

 pected; i.e., from mid-May until the end of June.* 



•» Contrib. Canad. Biol., N. Ser., vol. 1, 1923, p. 310. 



" Contrib. Canad. Biol.. N. Ser., vol. 2, 1824, p. 231. 



» Leldy (Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, Ser., 2, 1868, p. 228) found 30 

 small sand eels {Ammodytes) In the stomach of a shad, probably caught In 

 Delaware Bay. 



< Bean (Bull. 60, Zool., vol. 9, New York State Mus., 1903, p. 207) com- 

 mented on this long ago. 



• Accounts of the breeding habits of the shad have been given by Ryder, 

 Kept. U. S. Comm. Fish. (1885) 1887, p. 623; by Prince (Supp. 6, Rept. Dept. 

 Marine Fish. Canada, Fish. Branch. 1907, pp. 95-110; in the Manual of Fish 

 Culture, published by the U. S. Bur. of Fish., 1887; and more recently by 

 Leim (Contrib. Canadian Biol. N. Ser. vol. 2, 1924, pp. 184-202). 



» Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 5, vol. 1, 1887, pp. 683-684. 



« Leim, Contrib. Canad. Biol., N. Ser., vol. 2, No. 11, 1924, p. 182. 



In large rivers they run far upstream. In the 

 St. John River, New Brunswick, they ascend 

 about 200 miles to the grand falls even today 

 according to Leim, and they still run up 300 miles 

 (or did recently) in the Altamaha in Georgia; for 

 375 miles in the St. Johns River, Florida. But 

 they could run up only about 35 miles at present 

 in the Penobscot, where they formerly ascended 

 some 90 miles, or 44 miles (to Augusta) in the 

 Kennebec, which they formerly ascended 108 

 miles (to Carratunk Falls), though none enter 

 either of these rivers now, so far as we know. 

 And the dams at Lawrence, only 20-odd miles up- 

 stream, now stop any stray shad that may still 

 enter the Merrimac, which they formerly as- 

 cended for 125 miles to Lake Winnepesaukee. 8 



In the Shubenacadie, shad spawn mostly in 

 temperatures higher than about 54°, and spawning 

 is interrupted if the water chills below that, 

 temporarily. 



The fish select sandy or pebbly shallows for 

 spawning grounds, and deposit their eggs mostly 

 between sundown and midnight. Females pro- 

 duce about 30,000 eggs on the average, though as 

 many as 156,000 have been estimated in very large 

 fish. The spent fish, now very emaciated, begin 

 their return journey to the sea immediately after 

 spawning. In the Kennebec they were first seen 

 on their way down about June 20 and constantly 

 thereafter throughout July; in the St. John spent 

 fish are running down in July and August. Ac- 

 cording to Atkins they begin feeding before reach- 

 ing salt water and recover a good deal of fat 

 before moving out to sea. 



The eggs are transparent, pale pink or amber, 

 and being semi-buoyant and not sticky like those 

 of other river herrings they roll about on the 

 bottom with the current. The eggs hatch in 12 

 to 15 days at 52° (12° C), in 6 to 8 days at 63° 

 (17° C), which covers the range characteristic 

 of Maine and Bay of Fundy rivers during the 

 season of incubation. And Leim has made the 

 interesting discovery that larval development is 

 more successful in brackish than in pure fresh 

 water, with about 7.5 parts of salt per thousand 

 as about the most favorable salinity. 



The larvae are about 9 to 10 mm. long at the 

 time of hatching, growing to about 20 mm., at 21 



» Stevenson (Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish., (1898) 1899, p. Ill) has given a table 

 of the distances to which shad ascended various rivers then, and formerly 

 from the Penobscot in Maine to the St. Johns in Florida. 



