334 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



Figure 177. — Chub mackerel (Pneumatophorus colias), Provincetown, Mass. From Goode. Drawing by H. L. Todd. 



Size. — This is a smaller fish than its better 

 known relative, growing to a length of about 

 8 to 14 inches only. 



Habits. — Hardheads school like mackerel, and 

 their feeding habits are much the same, for 

 Doctor Kendall found fish on Georges Bank in 

 August 1896, full of the same species of pelagic 

 Crustacea and Sagittae that the mackerel had 

 taken at the same time and place, while specimens 

 taken at Woods Hole had dieted chiefly on cope- 

 pods, to a less extent on amphipods, Salpae, 

 appendicularians, and young herring. They fol- 

 low thrown bait as readily and bite quite as 

 greedily as mackerel do. Their breeding habits 

 have not been studied. 



General range. — Temperate Atlantic Ocean, 

 north to outer Nova Scotia and to the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence in the west, 72 to England in the 

 east. It is represented in the Pacific by a close 

 ally, Pneumatophorus japonicus. It is a more 

 southerly fish than the mackerel. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — Goode, 73 long 

 ago summarized the early history of the chub 

 mackerel in our waters, which briefly was as 

 follows: 



It was tremendously abundant during the last 

 of the eighteenth century and early years of the 

 nineteenth, down to 1820-1830. Thus Capt. 

 E. E. Merchant, an experienced and observant 

 fisherman, described them as so plentiful off 

 Provincetown from 1812 to 1820 that three men 

 and a boy could catch 3,000 in a day on hook and 



71 It Is reported from St. Margaret Bay and Halifax by Vladykov (Proc 

 Nova Scotlan Inst. Set., vol. 19, 1936, p. 7), and Sehmltt (Monographic de 

 l'lsle de Antlcostl, 1904, p. 285, Paris) credits It with "apparitions lrregu- 

 Ueres" at Antlcostl. 



» Fish. Ind., U. S., Sect. 1, 1884, p. 303. 



line. But it practically disappeared from the 

 United States coast some time between 1840 and 

 1850. It is interesting to note, as Captain At- 

 wood pointed out, that destructive methods of 

 fishing had nothing to do with the case, for its 

 disappearance antedated the introduction of traps, 

 pounds, or purse seines; it also antedated the re- 

 appearance of the bluefish (p. 386) ; hence cannot be 

 blamed on these sea pirates. So completely did 

 the hardheads vanish that the Smithsonian 

 Institution tried in vain for 10 years prior to 1879 

 to obtain a single specimen. But a school was 

 taken in the summer of 1879 in a trap at Province- 

 town (where representatives of the U. S. Fish 

 Commission were stationed at the time), and 

 though none were seen in 1880 there were some off 

 the coast of New York in 1886. 



We find no definite record of the status of the 

 hardhead during the next decade. But Bean 74 

 describes them as abounding off New York in 

 1896, swimming up little creeks in such numbers 

 that they could be dipped in boat loads. And 

 hardheads were taken singly and in schools by 

 the mackerel fleet on Georges Bank during that 

 same August, 76 while many were caught on hook 

 and line from the Grampus in Block Island Sound 

 during the first week of that September. 



Kendall found them at Monomoy, the southerly 

 elbow of Cape Cod in 1898, and they were suffi- 

 ciently restablished by then for Smith 76 to de- 

 scribe them as uncommon to abundant at Woods 

 Hole. They then dropped out of the published 

 record again (they are not separated from the 



« Bull. 60, New York State Mus., Zool. 9, 1903, p. 383. 

 « Field notes supplied by Dr. W. C. Kendall. 

 '• Bull. U. S. Fish. Comm., vol. 17, 1898, p. 95. 



