FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



171 



to about 1% inches (40 mm.), and that the lower 

 jaw out-strips the upper at first, so that fry of 

 4 to 6 inches (100 to 150 mm.) look more like 

 little halfbeaks ("Hemirampbus" itage) than like 

 their own parents. 



European students tell us that the skipper feeds 

 on the smaller pelagic Crustacea and probably 

 also on small fish, for it is sometimes caught on 

 hook and line. One examined by Linton at 

 Woods Hole contained chiefly annelid worms, 

 fragments of fish, copepods and crustacean larvae, 

 with some vegetable debris. 



General range. — Temperate parts of the Atlantic, 

 Pacific, and Indian Oceans, known in the open 

 sea as far north as northern Norway off the Euro- 

 pean coast, and to southern Newfoundland and 

 southern Nova Scotia 16 off the eastern American 

 coast. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — -While the 

 skipper is a straggler to our Gulf from warmer 

 waters offshore or farther south, it has been 

 taken along the northern coasts of New England 

 more often than have any of its relatives ; specific- 

 ally along Cape Cod; at Provincetown ; at several 

 locations in Massachusetts Bay where we have 

 seen schools of them; at Annisquam a few miles 

 north of Cape Ann; at Old Orchard (Maine); in 

 Casco Bay; at Monhegan Island; in the central 

 part of the Gulf; 16 among the islands at the 

 northern entrance to the Bay of Fundy; and on 

 the northern part of Georges Bank, where one was 

 gaffed from the Albatross //on September 20, 1928. 

 But we find no record of it along the Nova Scotia 

 shore of the Gulf of Maine. The inner curve of 



Cape Cod from Provincetown to Wellfleet seems 

 to be a regular center of abundance for it, as 

 Storer long ago remarked, for schools of billfish 

 are picked up in the traps along that stretch of 

 beach almost every year, the catch occasionally 

 amounting to hundreds of barrels, and hosts of 

 them have been known to strand there. Its num- 

 bers fluctuate greatly from year to year, however, 

 and it often fails to appear. 17 



They are likely to be taken any time from mid- 

 June to October or November, the largest catches 

 usually being made late in summer. 18 We have 

 seen several schools skipping, as is their common 

 habit, off the Scituate shore on the southern side 

 of Massachusetts Bay. But skippers are so much 

 less common farther within Massachusetts Bay 

 that some fishermen had never heard of them 

 there. They appear only as strays north of Cape 

 Ann. But it would not be astonishing if a large 

 school were to be encountered anywhere within 

 the Gulf; witness their occasional abundance off 

 northern Nova Scotia. 19 When skippers do in- 

 vade the waters of our Gulf, they may be expected 

 in multitudes, for they usually travel in vast 

 schools. Day, 20 for example, mentions the cap- 

 ture of 100,000 in a single haul in British waters. 



Commercial importance. — The skipper is not of 

 much commercial importance, being too sporadic 

 in its appearances. However, when large catches 

 are made on Cape Cod they find a ready sale near 

 by. If too many are caught for the local trade to 

 absorb, they are sent to Boston, where they are 

 sold for bait. 



THE FLYING FISHES. FAMILY EXOCOETIDAE 



The typical flying fishes have one dorsal fin 

 and one anal fin, both of them soft rayed, both 

 of them located far rearward, and with the anal 

 below the dorsal. Their ventral fins are well 

 behind their pectorals, their tails are very deeply 

 forked with the extreme tips rounded, the lower 

 lobe the longer, and they have small mouths and 

 large rounded scales. Their most distinctive 

 feature is that their pectorals are so long and so 

 stiff that their owners can plane through the air 



'» Cornish (Contrib. Canadian Biol., (1902-1905) 1907, p. 83) states that 

 large schools can often be seen at Canso, Nova Scotia, skipping over the water 

 as they flee from the pollock. 



'• The Museum of Comparative Zoology has a specimen, taken 115 miles 

 southeast of Portland Lightship. 



on them, several feet above the water, which they 

 do mostly in attempts to escape their enemies, 

 and as has been described, time and again. Jordan 

 and Evermann have given a popular account of 

 this so-called "flight" (really not flight at all, 

 for the flying fish does not flap its wings) in their 



" Blake (American Naturalist, vol. 4, 1870, p. 521) remarked that while 

 years before he saw thousands stranded at Provincetown not one was seen 

 in 1870. It failed In 1921, also, and no doubt in many intervening years. 



" We are Indebted for information on the local abundance of billfish on 

 Cape Cod to Capt. L. B. Ooodspeed, a fisherman of long experience and 

 close observation. 



a Cornish (Contrib. Canadian Biol., 1902-1905 (1907), p. 83) states that 

 large schools can often be seen at Canso skipping over the water as they flee 

 from the pollock. 



» The fishes of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 2, 1880-1884, p. 152. 



