FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



175 



recorded the following from silver hake taken at 

 Woods Hole: alewife, butterfish, cunner, herring, 

 mackerel, menhaden, launce, scup, silversides, 

 smelt, also the young of its own species. A 23^- 

 inch silver hake, taken at Orient, N. Y., had 75 

 herring, 3 inches long, in its stomach. 22 And it 

 is probable that the silver hake that frequent 

 Georges Bank feed chiefly on young haddock. 

 They eat squid when occasion offers. The small 

 ones in particular prey regularly on large shrimp 

 (Pandalus) in the deep troughs in our Gulf, where 

 experimental trawlings by the Atlantis in the 

 summer of 1936 took about four times as many 

 silver hake at stations where these shrimps were 

 abundant as at stations where shrimp were scarce. 23 

 They sometimes take crabs, and bite freely on 

 almost any bait, such as clams or cut fish. 



Though silver hake do not school in definite 

 bodies, multitudes of them often swim together, 

 and such bands sometimes drive herring ashore, 

 and strand themselves, in the pursuit. Events of 

 this sort are oftenest reported in early autumn 

 when the spent fish are feeding ravenously after 

 the effort of spawning, but this may also happen 

 at any time during the summer. Thus, Prof. A. E. 

 Gross saw the beach at Sandy Neck, Barnstable, 

 Mass., covered with them on several occasions in 

 June and July 1920. 24 Doctor Huntsman informs 

 us that spent fish frequently strand on the beaches 

 on both sides of the Bay of Fundy in September. 

 We once saw an army of silver hake harrying a 

 school of small herring on a shelving beach at 

 Cohasset, Mass. We half filled our canoe with 

 pursuers and pursued, with our bare hands. 



It is said that European silver hake rest on the 

 bottom by day and hunt by night, and it is usually 

 at night that the American fish run up into the 

 shallows and enter the traps. But strandings also 

 take place by day. Silver hake, like many other 

 rapacious species, are wanderers, independent of 

 depth within wide limits, and of the sea floor. 

 Sometimes they swim close to the bottom, some- 

 times in the upper levels of the water, their vertical 

 movements being governed chiefly by their 

 pursuit of prey. Their upper limit is the tide line; 

 at the other extreme they have been trawled 

 repeatedly as deep as 150 to 400 fathoms on the 

 continental slope off southern New England, and 



as deep as 296 fathoms off North Carolina. 26 

 When they are on bottom they are caught in- 

 differently on sandy or pebbly ground, or on mud 

 (as in the deep trough west of Jeffreys Ledge, 

 p. 175); seldom around rocks. 



The lowest temperatures in which we have known 

 of silver hake being taken have been between 

 38° and 40° F. (probably), in the bottom of the 

 deep trough west of Jeffreys Ledge, August 1936, 2 " 

 about 40° F. (4.4° C.) at 28 fathoms off New 

 York, February 28, 1929, and about 39.5° F. 

 (4.2° C.) at 19 fathoms in the same general region, 

 February 5, 1930. w And most of the winter and 

 early spring records for it have been where the 

 bottom temperature was warmer than about 

 43° F. (6° C.). 28 At the other extreme, we have 

 never heard of them in any numbers where the 

 water was warmer than about 64° F. (18° C.) ; the 

 monthly catches made in Cape Cod Bay (see p. 

 180) are especially instructive in this regard. 



Breeding habits. — The silver hake is the most 

 important summer spawner among Gulf of Maine 

 fishes that are important commercially, just as the 

 haddock is for spring and the pollock for autumn. 

 The Gulf is probably its most prolific nursery, too, 

 and it spawns over the outer part of the Nova 

 Scotia Banks also, as far east as Sable Island, 

 Dannevig 29 having recorded large egg catches in 

 the offing of Halifax. But this is probably its 

 eastern breeding limit, for the Canadian Fisheries 

 Expedition found no silver hake eggs or fry on 

 Banquereau or Misaine Banks; in the Laurentian 

 Channel; or on the Newfoundland Banks. In the 

 opposite direction, eggs in fair numbers have been 

 taken in the tow nets off Woods Hole in July and 

 August ; the Albatross II has found them and the 

 resultant larvae near shore off Long Island in 

 June and July, with eggs as far south as the offing 

 of Cape May ; and the young fry have been caught 

 off New York 30 from spring to autumn. 



We have no evidence that silver hake commence 

 to spawn before June, north of Cape Cod, our 

 earliest egg record having been for the 11th of that 



» Nichols and Breder, Zoologies, N. Y. Zool. Soc, vol. 9, 1927, p. 163. 

 ■ For details, see Bigelow and Schroeder, Biol. Bull., vol. 76, 1939, p. 315. 

 * The Auk, vol. 40, 1923, p. 19. 



» Goode and Bean, Smithsonian Contrib. Knowl., vol. 30, 1895, p. 387. 



* No temperature was taken, but 38.6" F. (3.66° C.) was recorded there at 

 85 fathoms, on August 15, 1914, and 39.8° F. (4.33° C.) at 72 fathoms on August 

 15, 1913. 



•' Specimens trawled by Albatroti II. 



" AlbatroM II trawled a considerable number at stations scattered along 

 the continental slope, from the offing of southern New England to the offing 

 of Chesapeake Bay, in February 1929 and 1930, and in April 1930. 



» Canad. Fish. Exped. (1914-1915), 1919, p. 27. 



" Nichols and Breder, Zoologies, New York Zool. Soc, vol. 9, 1927, p. 163. 



