FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



193 



compared to the whole peripheral zone of this part 

 of the Gulf within the 50-fathom curve. And ripe 

 fish are seldom found even close by, though the 

 fishing for green or spent fish may be good there. 



One consequence of the limited extent of these 

 spawning grounds is that the cod congregate on 

 them at the spawning season, in great numbers. 

 During the spring of 1879, for example, when 

 fishing was less intensive than it is at present, and 

 when the cod may have been correspondingly 

 more plentiful, more than 11,000,000 pounds of 

 cod, mostly spawning fish, were taken on the 

 Ipswich Bay ground alone by local fishermen. 



Spawning cod are caught only in small numbers, 

 and at scattered localities in the coastal zone 

 north and east of the Isles of Shoals, the more 

 productive of these minor grounds being near 

 Cape Elizabeth; off Casco Bay; off the Sheepscott 

 River; off Boothbay; and in the neighborhood of 

 Mount Desert Island. Very few ripe cod are 

 reported along the Maine coast farther east. And 

 the egg-collecting activities of the several hatcher- 

 ies have been carried on over so many years that 

 important centers of production there could hardly 

 have been missed. Cod eggs have been taken in 

 the Bay of Fundy but the larvae are unknown 

 there. Neither has any definite evidence been 

 obtained that cod breed in any abundance off the 

 west coast of Nova Scotia. And we should em- 

 phasize that the small ledges in the western part 

 of the Gulf, e. g., Jeffreys and Platts, are not 

 breeding centers though they are important 

 feeding grounds. We cannot speak for Grand 

 Manan Bank or for German Bank. Cod, in 

 short, are quite as local in their choice of spawning 

 grounds in the Gulf of Maine as they are in Nor- 

 wegian waters. 93 



Cod spawn at least as far south and west as New 

 Jersey, 94 and captures, in 1930, of a considerable 

 number of fry IK to 2% inches long off New 

 Jersey and off Virginia in April are evidence that 

 spawning is successful at least as far south as the 

 offing of Chesapeake Bay. But the fate of these 

 southern-spawned cod is yet to be learned. 



Following the cod eastward and northward, we 

 learn that eggs are produced in profusion as far 

 north as the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Grand 



Banks. But it is not known how much spawning 

 takes place along the eastern coast of Labrador, 

 although eggs have been taken in some numbers 

 along the west coast of Greenland as far north as 

 latitude 66°56' N. 96 



Cod spawn in shoaler water than haddock on 

 the whole. In fact, we can find no record of ripe 

 cod deeper than 50 fathoms in our waters, and 

 most of the Gulf of Maine spawning takes place on 

 considerably shoaler bottoms. The Georges Bank 

 ground, for example, is about 25 to 35 fathoms 

 deep ; the Nantucket grounds are hardly anywhere 

 deeper than 20 fathoms, and as shoal as 7 fathoms 

 in places; the Massachusetts Bay grounds are 

 about 12 to 25 fathoms; and the Ipswich Bay 

 ground is only 5 to 25 fathoms deep according to 

 the precise locality. 



It has long been known that while cod spawn 

 chiefly in winter, both in American and in Euro- 

 pean waters, the breeding season lasts much 

 longer and is less definitely limited at either end 

 for cod than it is for the haddock or for the 

 pollock. And experience has shown that the 

 season when the production of eggs is most active 

 differs widely even within the comparatively small 

 area now under discussion. On Nantucket 

 Shoals, ripening fish are caught from late October 

 on, with the cod spawning there in early Novem- 

 ber to mid-February, and occasionally until April. 

 Corresponding to this, the brood fish taken off 

 Nantucket that were formerly brought in to the 

 Woods Hole pool spawned there from about the 

 first of December until well into February and 

 occasionally as late as March, with the major pro- 

 duction usually from December 20 to January 7." 

 And the spawning season is about the same 

 as this off Plymouth in Massachusetts Bay, where 

 ripe cod of both sexes are common from November 

 until as late as April. 97 On the north side of Cape 

 Ann, however, only 50 miles distant, ripe fish 

 seldom appear in any numbers until January and 

 not until February in some years, though odd 

 ones may be expected from November on. 



Earll, for example, found that not one female 

 in ten had commenced to throw her eggs by Feb- 

 ruary, in Ipswich Bay, though spawning was then 



" See HJort (Rapp. Prou.-Verb., Cods. Perm. Internat. Ejplor. Mer.,vol. 

 20, 1914). 



" Smith, Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish. (1901) 1902, p. 208; Schroeder, Bull. 

 U. S. Bur. Fish; vol 46, 1930, p. 70. 



210941—53 14 



•■ Jensen (Rapp. et Proc. Verb., Conseil Internat. Explor. Mer., vol. 39, 

 1926. p. 85. 



'• Information from W. H. Thomas, formor superintendent of the Woods 

 Hole hatchery. 



" Information from C. G. Corliss, former superintendent of the Gloucester 

 hatchery. 



