FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



265 



mouths, which are such favored haunts for the 

 winter flounder. But it enters the deeper estuaries 

 and passages between the islands in the north- 

 eastern part of the Gulf, those near Mount Desert, 

 for example, Passamaquoddy Bay, and St. Mary 

 Bay. 



We hesitate to draw any definite conclusions 

 from published statistics of the landings of "dab" 97 

 as to the regional abundance of this particular flat- 

 fish in our Gulf, partly because of the likelihood 

 that other flatfish may appear under this name, 

 or dabs under some other name, and partly be- 

 cause only a few of the otter trawlers fish in the 

 deeper basins of the Gulf where dabs are known to 

 be plentiful. 



The returns for 1945, if taken at face value, 

 show about 48,000 pounds landed from off east- 

 ern Maine; about 586,000 pounds from off central 

 Maine; about 311,000 pounds from off western 

 Maine; about 43,000 pounds from small grounds 

 in the west central part of the Gulf; about 897,000 

 pounds from off eastern Massachusetts; about 

 8,000 pounds from Nantucket Shoals; about 

 910,000 pounds from the South Channel and 

 Georges Bank combined; about 48,000 pounds 

 from Browns Bank; and about 40,000 pounds from 

 off western Nova Scotia (by United States fisher- 

 men) ; or a total of some 2,890,000 pounds. It was 

 not until 1946 that the dab was listed (as "Cana- 

 dian plaice") in the Canadian fisheries statistics 

 for Nova Scotia ; in that year landings for western 

 Nova Scotia (Yarmouth County) were about 

 140,000 pounds, and about 41,000 pounds for the 

 Nova Scotian side of the Bay of Fundy (Digby 

 County). 



The presence of dabs or Canadian plaice of 

 catchable sizes in the Bay of Fundy in general, and 

 in Passamaquoddy Bay in particular, is interesting 

 as evidence that this is not so stationary a fish 

 there as it seems to be elsewhere, for none are reared 

 there so far as is known (p. 266), so that the main- 

 tenance of the local stock appears to depend on 

 immigration from outside. Huntsman's observa- 

 tion is interesting, too, that large ones form a much 

 smaller proportion of the population in Passama- 

 quoddy Bay and in the Bay of Fundy than they do 

 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And it seems, simi- 

 larly, that large ones are less plentiful relatively in 



Passamaquoddy Bay than they are in the western 

 side of the open Gulf of Maine. The death rate 

 may be higher in Passamaquoddy waters, as 

 Huntsman has suggested, or it may prove that the 

 fish tend to work out from there into the open Gulf 

 as they advance in age. 



The dab is a spring spawner on both sides of 

 the Atlantic, as is well known. The earliest date 

 at which we have taken its eggs in our tow net 

 in the Gulf of Maine has been March 4 (in 1920), 

 off Casco Bay. We have also found the eggs on 

 Browns Bank on the 13th, while Welsh records 

 large female fish, half spent and with eggs exuding, 

 as well as males with running milt, on the 14th of 

 March, near Cape Ann, in 1913. But other fish 

 of both sexes taken with them were unripe still, 

 evidence that spawning is not general until the 

 last of March or first part of April. Dab eggs 

 have appeared regularly in our towings in April 

 (twice in great numbers, namely off Seguin Island 

 on the 10th and off Mount Desert Island on the 

 12th in 1920). Spawning continues unabated 

 throughout May, when eggs were taken at nearly 

 all our towing stations in 1915. And April and 

 May similarly cover the height of the spawning 

 season in the Bay of Fundy, according to Hunts- 

 man. 98 Our latest seasonal record has been for 

 a single egg, on the 14th of June in 1915. 



The dab spawns chiefly during May and June 

 on the banks off Cape Breton and in the southern 

 part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence: until the end of 

 July on the southern part of the Newfoundland 

 Banks (a few eggs were found by the Canadian 

 Fisheries Expedition) ; until fall around the south- 

 eastern and eastern coasts of Newfoundland, and 

 along the outer coast of Labrador, according to 

 Frost. And the eggs are reported from May into 

 July off West Greenland, by Jensen. 



It spawns somewhat earlier in the North Sea 

 than in American waters; i. e., from mid-January 

 till May with the climax in March and April. 

 Huntsman also remarks that there is a difference 

 in the breeding season according to the depth of 

 water, those living shoalest commencing to spawn 

 the earliest, as the vernal warming of the water 

 makes itself felt from above. But we have no 

 clear evidence on this point to offer for the Gulf of 

 Maine. 



■' It is only during the past few years that the landings of this particular 

 flatfish have been reported separately, as "dab." 



•» Bull. 1, Biol. Boald Canada, 1918, p. 14. 



