FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



165 



in number from 7 to 12 in the young to 14 to 20 in 

 adult fish. When the females reach a length of 

 about two inches, however, the original 7 to 12 

 transverse bars are transformed with growth into 

 two or three longitudinal stripes on each side, the 

 upper stripe running uninterrupted from gill 

 opening to tail, the lower stripes in two segments, 

 the one from close behind the pectoral to above 

 the ventral, the other thence backward to close 

 behind the rear edge of the anal fin. One or two 

 transverse bars persist however on the caudal 

 peduncle, even on the oldest females. 



Color. — This is a decidedly paler fish than the 

 other "mummy." Apart from the black bars 

 the male is dark olive green above with silvery 

 sides, a greenish-yellow belly, and a black spot 

 on the rear part of the dorsal fin; his pectorals and 

 caudal are pale yellowish. The male becomes 

 more brilliant at breeding time, the back turning 

 almost black, the lower sides and belly changing to 

 orange or golden, and the fins to bright yellow. 

 The female is olive green above and white below, 

 striped as described above. 



Size. — This is a larger fish than the common 

 mummichog, occasionally growing to a length of 

 7 inches and often to 6 inches. 



Habits. — The striped mummie parallels the 

 common mummie in being restricted to the 

 immediate neighborhood of the land, and in its 

 way of life, except that it keeps more strictly to 

 salt water, and is found more often along open 

 beaches. Its most interesting habit is its ability 

 to flop back into the water if it becomes stranded 

 with the receding tide, jumping unerringly toward 

 the water in almost every instance, and progressing 

 from several inches to several feet at each jump. 97 

 And so noted are they for this peculiar ability 

 that a special article has been devoted to it. 88 

 Their diet consists of small animals including 

 mollusks, crustaceans, fish, insects, and insect 

 larvae. Westward and southward from Cape 

 Cod they spawn from late spring to late summer. 



General range. — Coast of the United States, 

 from the vicinity of Boston, Mass., to Florida. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The striped 

 mummie is very abundant along the southern 

 shores of New England, westward from Cape 

 Cod. But the only published records for it in 



the gulf are for the vicinity of Boston and Salem, 

 many years ago, and we had not seen it north of 

 Cape Cod before 1937. In that autumn, how- 

 ever, B. Preston Clark brought in four specimens 

 that he had taken at Cohasset, on the southern 

 shore of Massachusetts Bay; it was reported to 

 us as in numbers there in 1939," and we have 

 seen small schools of them in recent summers 

 in the salt marshes at the entrance to Cohasset 

 Harbor, as well as nearby. If this little fish 

 actually has extended its regular range north- 

 ward and if its dispersal-route has been via the 

 Cape Cod Canal, as has been suggested, 1 it is to be 

 expected anywhere in the marshes around Cape 

 Cod Bay and along the southern shore of Massa- 

 chusetts Bay, and we suspect that a resident 

 population is to be found in the Nauset Marshes 

 and in Pleasant Bay, on the outer shore of Cape 

 Cod. 



Sheepshead minnow Cyprinodon variegatus 

 Lacep&de 1803 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 671. 



Description. — The sheepshead minnow is so 

 deep bodied (its body is nearly half as deep as 

 long, not counting the tail fin) that it is not apt 

 to be mistaken for either of the mummichogs. 

 And it is separated further from the mummi- 

 chogs by its teeth, which are large, wedge-shaped 

 and with tricuspid cutting edges, instead of small 

 and pointed. It is a flat-sided little fish, with 

 high arched back, small flat-topped head, small 

 terminal mouth hardly gaping back to the forward 

 edge of the eye, and it has the thick caudal 

 peduncle characteristic of its family. Its tail is 

 square (rounded in the mummichogs), and the 

 fact that almost the whole of its dorsal fin is in 

 front of the anal instead of over it affords an- 

 other point of difference. The pectorals are 

 large, reaching back past the base of the ventrals, 

 which seem very small by contrast. Both its 

 body and its head are covered with large rounded 

 scales, largest on top of the head and on the 

 cheeks, with one much larger than the others just 

 above the pectoral fin. Young fish are propor- 

 tionally more slender than old ones. The dorsal, 

 ventral, and anal fins are higher in the males of 

 this species than in the females, much as they 



•' Hildebrand and Schroeder, Bull. U. 8. Bur. Fish. vol. 48, Pt. 1 1928 

 p. 141. 

 •' Mast, Jour .o (Anlma Behavior, vol. 5, No. 5, 1916, pp. 341-340. 



« By John W. Lowes. 



i Schroeder, Copela, 1937, No. 4, p. 238. 



