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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



they take to the bottom they become bottom 

 feeders like cod, devouring all kinds of inverte- 

 brates so indiscriminately that, as Baird 33 re- 

 marked long ago, "a complete list of the animals 

 devoured by the haddock would doubtless include 

 nearly all the species belonging to the fauna" of 

 the particular ground on which the fish in question 

 were living. And they begin to depend on this 

 adult diet when they are small. Thus we have 

 found 7- to 9-inch fish full ol brittle stars, bivalve 

 mollusks, small worms, and amphipods. The 

 larger Crustacea, such as hermit, spider, and 

 common crabs, shrimps, and amphipods, with gas- 

 tropods and bivalve mollusks in great variety, 

 worms, starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars, brittle 

 stars, and sea cucumbers all enter regularly into 

 the dietary of the haddock, according to locality. 



W. F. Clapp, for instance, listed no less than 

 68 species of mollusks, both bivalves and gastro- 

 pods, from 1,500 haddock that were caught on the 

 northwest part of Georges Bank in 40 to 60 

 fathoms, and he has called our attention to the 

 fact that haddock usually contain smaller shells 

 than do cod, and never the very large sea clams 

 (Mactra) which are so important a constituent of 

 the diet of the latter. Neither do haddock eat 

 crabs larger than about 2 inches across, as cod so 

 greedily do. On the other hand, haddock depend 

 more on worms than cod do, and they are often 

 packed full of worm tubes when they are caught 

 on bottoms covered with the latter (the "spaghetti 

 bottom") as in the locality known as "Cove 

 Clark" on the northwest face of Georges Bank 

 (about lat. 41° 08', long. 68° 40')- Haddock caught 

 near Eastport, Maine, contained 8 species of 

 annelid worms, and they must root out much of 

 their food from the mud and sand of the sea 

 bottom; in no other way could they obtain the 

 burrowing worms and mollusks that their stomachs 

 contain so often. 



Haddock take squid when opportunity offers; 

 they are said to prey on herring in Norwegian 

 waters; on launce around Iceland; on fish, mostly 

 launce, on the Nova Scotian banks; 34 on young 

 eels off Cape Breton, Nova Scotia; 35 on herring 

 near Woods Hole and, in 1931, we received reports 

 of haddock having eaten small mackerel on 

 Georges Bank in January. And many baby had- 



« Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish (1886) 1889, p. 37. 



» Sec Homans and Needier (Proc. Nova Scotian Inst. Scl., vol. 21, 1946, 

 pp. 15-49) (or a study of the haddock. 

 - Needier, Copela, No. 171, 1929, p. 41. 



dock about 8 inches (20 cm.) long, trawled on the 

 southwest part of Georges Bank, August 13, 1945, 

 were not only seen by John R. Clark of the U. S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, to disgorge large num- 

 bers of small fish (apparently young silver hake) 

 on the deck of the vessel, but had been feeding 

 chiefly on them. They have also been accused of 

 feeding greedily on herring spawn, perhaps without 

 much justice. But fish ordinarily form so small a 

 part of the diet of the haddock of our Gulf that 

 none of those examined by Welsh near Cape Ann 

 in 1913, nor the Georges Bank haddock opened by 

 Clapp (about 5,000 altogether), and only two of 

 the many that we have ourselves opened, con- 

 tained fish of any kind, nor have any of the fisher- 

 men of whom we have inquired (and their practical 

 experience is of course vastly wider than ours) 

 described Gulf of Maine haddock as feeding to 

 any great extent on fish. And none of the East- 

 port haddock that were opened by Doctor Kendall 

 had risen to take the large pelagic shrimps 

 (euphausiids) that are so abundant there and 

 which are the chief food of the local pollock. 



Welsh's experience with the haddock near Cape 

 Ann during April 1913 was that they are apt to 

 fast at spawning time; more than 95 percent of 

 the hundreds of fish caught there in the gill nets 

 were totally empty, while long lines set nearby 

 were bringing in very few haddock though they 

 were taking hake in fair numbers. But spawning 

 haddock elsewhere "both male and female, have 

 been found with well filled stomachs, and many 

 spawners have been observed in the catches of line 

 fishermen," 38 so the rule is not universal. It also 

 seems that they feed less actively, or at least they 

 take the hook less freely, at temperatures lower 

 than about 36°, as it is in the coldest parts of the 

 Gulf in winter, and the best hook and line catches 

 are made at about 45°-50° F. 



The haddock, like the cod, is a prolific fish for 

 its size. Earll 37 estimated the number of eggs in 

 a female weighing 2% pounds and 19}£ inches long 

 at 169,050; 634,380 in one of 4% pounds and 24 

 inches long; 1,839,581 in one 9 pounds 9 ounces 

 and 28 K inches long. Incubation occupies 15 days 

 at a temperature of 37°; 13 days at 41°, a fair 

 average for the eggs that are spawned in the Gulf 

 of Maine. The eggs are buoyant, without oil 



» Needier, Contrib. Canadian Biol, and Fish., N. Ser., vol. 6, 1930, No. 10 

 p. 7. 

 " Rept. tJ. 8. Comm. Fish. (1878) 1880, p. 733. 



