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FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



beaches, in estuaries, and in river mouths. White 

 perch also occur landlocked in fresh-water ponds 

 in many places. 



They are ordinarily found in shallow water, 

 usually not deeper than perhaps a fathom or two, 

 but sometimes as deep as 10-21 fathoms in 

 Chesapeake Bay. 24 However, they are not bot- 

 tom fish (except in winter), but wander from place 

 to place in small schools. Apart from this, they 

 are resident throughout the year wherever found. 

 In winter they congregate in the deeper parts of 

 the bays and creeks, where they either hibernate, 

 or at least pass the cold season in a sluggish 

 condition. 



When living in salt or brackish water white 

 perch feed on small fish fry of all kinds, young 

 squid, shrimps, crabs, and various other inverte- 

 brates, as well as on the spawn of other fish, of 

 which they are very destructive. Swarms of 

 young perch, for instance, have been seen follow- 

 ing the alewives around the shores of ponds on 

 Marthas Vineyard, eating their spawn as it was 

 deposited. They bite freely on almost any bait, 

 natural or artificial. 



Breeding. — Along southern New England the 

 white perch spawn in April, May, and June. 

 Presumably the season commences a few weeks 

 later around the Gulf of Maine, but definite data 

 are lacking. 26 Those living in salt water run up 

 into fresh or slightly brackish water to spawn. 

 The eggs (about 0.73 mm. in diameter, with large 

 oil globule) sink and stick together in masses, or to 

 any object on which they chance to rest. Incuba- 

 tion occupies about 6 days at a temperature of 

 52°. The newly hatched larvae are about 2.3 

 mm. long with the vent some distance behind the 

 yolk sac and with very little pigment. In five or 

 six days after hatching the head begins to pro- 

 ject forward, the yolk sac has been partly absorbed 

 and branched pigment cells have appeared on the 

 oil globule. The late larval and post larval 

 stages have not been described. 26 



General range. — Atlantic coast of North America 

 from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Nova Scotia to 

 South Carolina, breeding in fresh or brackish water 



« Hildebrand and Schroeder (Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 43, Ft. 1, 1928, p. 

 245) report ripe specimens as deep as 9H to 21 fathoms In Chesapeake Bay. 



»» In Chesapeake Bay they spawn chiefly In April and May, but they are 

 known to do so exceptionally in December (Hildebrand and Schroeder, Bull. 

 U. S. Bur. Fish., vol. 43, Ft. 1, 1928, p. 245). 



» Ryder (Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish., (1885) 1887, p. 518) describes the early 

 development. 



and permanently landlocked in many fresh ponds 

 and streams. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — The white 

 perch inhabit salt, brackish, and fresh water in- 

 differently along the shores of southern New Eng- 

 land. But while this is a familiar fish in many 

 ponds throughout northern New England, New 

 Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, they are found 

 regularly in only a few estuarine situations north 

 of Cape Cod, and they hardly belong to the fish 

 fauna of the open Gulf. Thus we have heard only 

 vaguely of them in Duxbury Bay and in the North 

 and South Kivers in Marshfield; and we had not 

 been able to satisfy ourselves of their presence in 

 the salt creeks about Cohasset, Mass. (localities 

 apparently suited to it) until the summer of 1950, 

 when white perch running-up stream to a pond 

 were reported there. 27 Storer long ago described 

 white perch as brought to Boston market from the 

 mouths of neighboring rivers and from ponds to 

 which the sea had access. And white perch run in 

 salt and brackish reaches of the Parker River in 

 northern Massachusetts, providing fishing for 

 many small boat anglers in spring and summer. 



Ordinarily white perch are so scarce along the 

 open coast from Cape Cod northward that they 

 did not figure in the statistics of the shore fisheries 

 of any part of Massachusetts Bay from 1907 to 

 1928. 28 And ordinarily they are not common 

 along the coast of Maine ; none was reported from 

 the shore fisheries of Maine in 1905 or 1919, and 

 only 400 pounds in 1902; none at all of late years. 

 But they appear locally, however, in unusual num- 

 bers on rare occasions. Thus it is probable that 

 certain unfamiliar fish taken at Beverly on the 

 north shore of Massachusetts Bay during the 

 summer of 1950, and in Casco Bay, were white 

 perch. 29 No less than 1,600 pounds of white perch 

 were reported for the shore fisheries of the short 

 coast line of New Hampshire in the year 1912: 

 Casco Bay saw a run of them in the summer of 

 1901 when local fishermen, not knowing the fish, 

 dubbed them "sea bass"; and they have been re- 

 ported at Eastport, Maine. But apparently they 

 do not occur around the shores of the Bay of 

 Fundy, either in salt water or in brackish. And 

 there is no reason to suppose that white perch were 

 more regularly plentiful along the coast of the 

 Gulf of Maine than they are today. 



» Reported by Lenore Williams, Salt Water Sportsman for June 30, 1950. 

 * Only recent years from which detailed information is available. 

 n Moore, Boston Herald, for August 7, 1950. 



