FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



225 



bivalve mollusks, and neither large mollusks nor 

 echinoderms have ever been found in a hake, so 

 far as we know. The stomach contents so far 

 recorded x show that shrimps (Pandalus) , amphi- 

 pods, and other small Crustacea which they find 

 on the bottom are their chief dependence at most 

 times and in most places. They also feed as 

 greedily on squid as others of the cod tribe do, 

 and a variety of small fish have been found in 

 hake stomachs at Woods Hole, 29 such as alewives, 

 butterfish, cunners, eels, flatfishes, tautog, her- 

 ring, mackerel, menhaden, launce, silversides, 

 silver hake, sculpins, sea robins, smelt, and 

 tomcod. 



Small white hake trawled some 75 miles south 

 of Martha's Vineyard, in 56 fathoms, January 

 29, 1950, by the dragger Eugene H had fed on 

 small squid, crabs (Cancer) and small butterfish 

 (Poronotus); others trawled off Chesapeake Bay 

 (lat. 38°13' N., long. 73°49' W.) in 52 fathoms by 

 the Albatross II, March 2, 1931, had small mack- 

 erel, flounders, crabs, and squid in their stomachs. 

 And we have seen squirrel hake caught off north- 

 ern New Jersey with their bellies distended with 

 launce, and with launce hanging from their 

 mouths. 



Hake of both species bite on fish bait such as 

 herring readily; in fact, most of those that are 

 caught on long lines (p. 230) are hooked on pieces 

 of herring. Bu t they also take clams on the hook 

 greedily enough. In the northeastern part of the 

 Gulf of Maine hake feed far enough off bottom to 

 capture the pelagic euphausiid shrimps (Meganyc- 

 tiphanes and Thysanoessa) that are so plentiful 

 there, while the general character of their diet is 

 sufficient evidence that they do not root in the 

 ground like haddock. 



Ever since 1616, when Capt. John Smith 30 wrote 

 "Hake you may have when the cod fades in 

 summer, if you will fish in the night," it has been 

 common knowledge that they bite best after dark, 

 from which it is fair to assume they do most of 

 their foraging between sunset and sunrise. 



» Cioode, (Fish. Ind. U. S., Sect. 1, 1884, p. 235); Kendall, (Rept. U. S. 

 Oomm. Fish., (1896) 1898, p. 180); Linton, (Bull. U. S. Fish Comm., vol. 19, 

 1901, p. 478); Hansen, (Proo. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 48, 1915, p. 94); Breder 

 (Zoologica, N. Y. Zool. Soc, vol. 2, No. 15, 1922, p. 350); and Vinal Edwards' 

 notes. 



" A large white hake taken at Woods Hole in May 1908 had a fish (tepo- 

 phidium) encysted in the wall of its body cavity, having no doubt penetrated 

 the hake's stomach after it had been swallowed. (Sumner, Osburn, and 

 Cole, Bull. U. S. Bur. of Fish., vol. 31, pt. 2, 1913, p. 768). 



* General Historie of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, 1616, 

 ed. of 1819, vol. 2, p. 188. 



210941—68 18 



Herrick 3I has given an interesting account of the 

 perceptions of squirrel hake kept in a tank at 

 Woods Hole, where they proved to have keen 

 sight (though less so than pollock) and usually 

 caught bits of meat before these had sunk. But 

 it seems that it was only while food was in motion 

 that the fish recognized it by sight, and that they 

 depend chiefly on the sense of touch for their 

 livelihood. They exercised this by swimming close 

 to bottom with the sensitive tips of the ventral 

 fins dragging the ground. When a hake touched 

 a fragment of clam in this way it immediately 

 snapped it up, but not otherwise. And they paid 

 no attention whatever to live clams in their shells, 

 though they often brushed over them. These 

 observations, applied to the conditions under 

 which hake actually five, suggests that they rec- 

 ognize shrimps, crabs, aDd other foods by their 

 ventral feelers, and that they snap up their victims 

 as these dart ahead, when the feelers drag over 

 them. 



No doubt the eggs of the white hake are bouyant 

 like those of the squirrel hake (p. 225), but few 

 wholly ripe females, no eggs naturally spawned, 

 or young larvae have been seen yet. 



We were equally ignorant of the spawning and 

 early stages of the squirrel hake up to the summer 

 of 1912. But we trawled squirrel hake with 

 running spawn and unit in Ipswich Bay in that 

 July, fertilized the eggs on board the Grampus, and 

 thus identified the eggs. Since then large numbers 

 of squirrel-hake eggs have been hatched arti- 

 ficially at the Gloucester hatchery. 



Figure 107. — Squirrel hake (Urophycis chuss), eggs, after 

 1 hour's incubation, A; and after 74 hours' incuba- 

 tion, B. 



The eggs are buoyant, spherical, transparent, 

 and 0.72 to 0.76 mm. in diameter. When first 

 spawned they have variable numbers of small 



»' Bull. U. S. Fish Comm. .vol.22 ,1904. p. 258. 



