FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



177 



Evidently the young silver hake take to the 

 deeper water layers toward the end of their first 

 summer or that autumn, when about 1 to 3 inches 

 long, for fry as small as this have been trawled in 

 good numbers off southern New England at 150 

 fathoms and deeper at that season during the early 

 explorations of the U. S. Fish Commission, 33 by 

 the Albatross II off Rockaway and off Long Beach, 

 N. Y., in November 1928. By February they 

 may be anywhere from 1% to 5 inches long, de- 

 pending on how early they are hatched, on when 

 they take to bottom, and on the feeding conditions 

 they find there. 34 They may be anywhere from 

 about 2 inches long to aboit 6% inches long by 

 April. 36 



The sizes of the many small silver hake that we 

 have collected at different times of the year, both 

 within the Gulf of Maine and southward as far as 

 the offing of Chesapeake Bay, suggest that they 

 reach an average length of 5% to 7% inches when 

 1 year old, and of about 9 % to 11 inches at 2 years 

 of age, i. e., in their third summer. 38 Fish of 11 

 to 14 inches that dominated the pound-net catches 

 made near PrOvincetown, August 1939, 37 were 

 three-year-olds, probably. The rate of growth has 

 not been traced for the older fish, nor can it be 

 deduced from that of the European silver hake for 

 the latter grows to a considerably greater length, 

 averaging as much as 30 inches at 8 years in the 

 extreme northerly part of its range (Iceland) and 

 considerably larger still, in the southern part (Gulf 

 of Gascony and off Morocco). 38 But it is reason- 

 able to assume that the growth of the American 

 fish varies similarly with the latitude (i. e., that it 

 is most rapid in high temperatures) and that the 

 American female, like the European, grows faster 

 than the male. The European Merluccius ma- 

 tures at 2 years, which is probably true of the 

 American species as well. 



General range. — Continental shelf of eastern 

 North America, northward to the Newfoundland 



» Qoode, Fish, and Fish. Ind. U. 8., Sect. 1, 1884, p. 242. 



*• Fry taken In February of different years by Albatross II have ranged 

 from lii inches (31 mm.) long to i% inches (120 mm.). 



« In April 1930 Albatross II trawled young fry ranging in length from 2 

 Inches (54 mm.) to 6% inches (163 mm.) long at a number of stations from 

 the offing of Rhode Island to the offing of Chesapeake Bay, at 14 to 85 fathoms. 



» For further details, see Bigelow and Schroeder (Biol. Bull., vol. 76, 1939, 

 pp. 319-320, flg. 8). 



" Information supplied by Wm. A. Ellison, Jr. 



" Belloc, Notes et Memolres No. 21, Office Scientlflque et Technique des 

 Pfiches Maritimes, France, 1923. 



Banks, southward to the offing of South Carolina; 39 

 most abundant between Cape Sable and New 

 York. It is represented farther offshore and in 

 the Gulf of Mexico by forms, the relationship of 

 which to the Merluccius of our northeastern coast 

 has not yet been determined. The silver hake is 

 represented in Europe by a close relative, the 

 European hake (Merluccius merluccius), an excel- 

 lent account of the natural history and migrations 

 of which is given by Le Danois. 40 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Silver hake 

 are familiar fish all around the coasts of the Gulf 

 of Maine from Cape Cod to the Bay of Fundy and 

 to the west coast of Nova Scotia. But it has long 

 been a matter of common knowledge that their 

 chief center of abundance is in the southwestern 

 part of the Gulf. Thus in 1945 (most recent year 

 for which detailed regional statistics are available), 

 the reported landings were between 46 and 47 

 million pounds 41 from off eastern Massachusetts 

 in general, including the shores of Cape Cod out to 

 the western slope of the so-called South Channel, 

 contrasting with only about 4 million pounds for 

 the western and central coasts of Maine, and with 

 only about 6,500 pounds for eastern Maine. 

 Silver hake, it is true, are said to be common in 

 the Passamaquoddy region (more so in some years 

 than in others), also around Grand Manan at the 

 mouth of the Bay of Fundy. And they are re- 

 ported at various localities along the Nova Scotia 

 side of the Bay and along western Nova Scotia. 

 But they are not mentioned in the statistics of the 

 Canadian catches for these waters, hence cannot 

 be very plentiful there. 



Silver hake are numerous over the west-central 

 deeps of the Gulf also; in fact we found this the 

 most plentiful fish at 70 to 90 fathoms in the 

 basins off Cape Cod in the southwestern part of 

 the Gulf and off Mount Desert in the northeastern, 

 in August 1936; also in the trough west of Jeffreys 

 Ledge, where the catches of them averaged 292 

 fish (maximum 840, niinimum 1) as reduced to the 

 common standard of one hour's trawling with an 

 82-foot shrimp trawl. And it is interesting that 

 the catch there averaged about four times as great 



'• The silver hake has been said, repeatedly, to range southward to the 

 Bahamas, in deep water, following Jordan and Evermann (Bull. 47, U. S. 

 Nat. Mas., Ft. 3, 1898, p. 2530). But the most southerly positive record we 

 have found for it is off Charleston, S. C. (Blake Sta. 313, lat. 32° 32' N., long. 

 78° 45' W.; Goode and Bean, Smithsonian Contrib. Knowl., vol. 30, 1895, 

 p. 387). 



« Notes et Mem., 2, Off. Sci. Tech. PGches Maritimes, France, 1920. 



«' "Round" and dressed fish combined. 



