FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



435 



tucket Lightship fishing grounds, for while the 

 catch has averaged only about one-third as great 

 for the latter as for the former, the statistical 

 area in question is about one-third as extensive. 

 But the catches of rosefish (1937-1946), made by 

 United States vessels from southern Nova Scotia 

 out across Browns Bank, are of the same general 

 order of magnitude 31 as for the South Channel. 

 And a catch of 1,400 rosefish in two sets of a line 

 trawl on Browns Bank, April 4, 1913, will illus- 

 trate how plentiful they were there, before they 

 were so hard-fished as they have been of late. 



Large catches of rosefish are also made all along 

 the outer Nova Scotian shelf to the eastward. 

 There is an abundant population on the New- 

 foundland Banks still awaiting exploitation; some 

 7,000,000 pounds were taken in Hermitage Bay, 

 on the south coast of Newfoundland from 1947 to 

 1950. 32 And fry have been taken along both 

 coasts of Newfoundland; also northward from 

 Flemish Cap, "where the Gulf Stream and the 

 Labrador current struggle for mastery. 33 The 

 most northerly record for the rosefish on the 

 American coast is from the outer coast of Labrador 

 (Camp Islands), a few miles north of the Strait of 

 Belle Isle. 34 



It has been known for many years that there are 

 rosefish in the deep waters of the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence. But we still await information as to 

 how plentiful they may be there. 



The upper limit to the vertical range of the rose- 

 fish in different parts of our Gulf is clearly cor- 

 related with temperature. Thus it is only deeper 

 than 15 to 20 fathoms that rosefish are found 

 during the warm half of the year in the south- 

 western part of the Gulf. But they have been 

 known to run up into Gloucester Harbor in num- 

 bers in winter 3S (never in summer). Many have 

 been taken near the surface in the spring in the 

 drift-nets near the Isles of Shoals where it is only 

 near bottom that they are reported in summer. 

 We have taken them as shoal as 10 fathoms in 

 summer off Mount Desert Island, Maine, where 

 the water warms to about 52°-54° at that depth, 

 and they occur in Pasamaquoddy Bay in water no 



deeper than 5 fathoms at that season, according 

 to Huntsman. Verrill, 36 in fact, described them 

 as round the wharves at Eastport, no doubt in late 

 summer or early autumn, the season he studied 

 the fauna there. 



Apart from shifts in depth of the sort just men- 

 tioned, with the seasonal rise and fall of tempera- 

 ture, there is no evidence that the adidt rosefish 

 of our Gulf carry out any regular migration. But 

 the larvae may journey for long distances while 

 they drift helpless in the upper layers of the water 

 (p. 436). 



In 1930, we saw gravid females during the last 

 half of April, with young nearly ready for birth, 

 evidence that some rosefish may be born in the 

 Gulf of Maine as early as the first part of May. 

 Females also, with well-developed eggs, and males 

 with well-developed milt, are taken commonly by 

 mid-May, both within the Gulf and on Georges 

 Bank, 37 while we have towed a few newborn fish 

 (7 to 10 mm.) off Boothbay and off Mount Desert 

 on May 31 and on June 14. But July 8 is the 

 earliest that we have taken them in any numbers 

 in our tow nets (57 larvae off Cape Cod on that 

 date in 1913.) 



Evidently the production of young continues 

 right through July and August, for the Albatross II 

 trawled many gravid females, 10 to 13% inches 

 long, in the central basin of the Gulf in July (1931), 

 one of them containing about 20,000 young, 6-7 

 mm. long, practically ready for birth, while we 

 have towed newly born larvae (6.5-7 mm.) in one 

 part of the Gulf or another on July 24 and 29 and 

 August 4, 7, 12, 14, 16, 22, and 31, and as small as 

 10 mm. on September 2. 38 But it is not likely 

 that many young are produced after the first week 

 in September. 



Records for rosefish larvae and fry for late June, 

 July, and August along the outer Nova Scotian 

 shelf, and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, as well as 

 from May until into September around the Grand 

 Banks and up the two coasts of Newfoundland, 

 show that the season of production commences 

 nearly as early in the season in these more nor- 

 therly waters as it does in the Gulf of Maine and 



ii Yearly catches, from about 9H million to about 27H million pounds. 



" Twentieth Rept. Dept. Fish. Canada (1949-50) 1951, p. 36. 



» Taning, Journal du Conseil, Oons. Internat. Explor. Mer., vol. 16, 1949, 

 p. 90. 



" See Frost, Newfoundland Dept. Nat. Resources, Res. Bull. 4, 1938, Cb. 

 7, for locality records of rosefish fry in Newfoundland and Labrador waters. 



» Fish. Ind. U. S. Sect. 1, 1884, p. 262. We have not heard of them In 

 sny numbers In any other harbor south of Cape Elizabeth. 



'• American Naturalist, vol. 5, 1871, p. 400. 



" In 1950 Albatross III trawled a number of large males with well-developed 

 milt, and large females with young nearly or quite ready for birth, on the 

 southern slope of Georges Bank on May 16, at 175-195 fathoms. 



n For completp list, with station localities, numbers and sizes of larvae, 

 and depths of the hauls, see Bigelow, Bull, Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 58, 1914, 

 p. 108; vol. 61, 1917, pp. 271-272. 



