FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



471 



Description. — The striped sea robin resembles 

 the common sea robin so closely that one might 

 easily be taken for the other. But its mouth is 

 wider and gapes back almost opposite the front 

 of the eye, with the maxillary bone more than 

 one-third as long as the head. Its head is flatter 

 (compare fig. 246 with fig. 245) ; its pectoral fins 

 are longer relatively (reaching back to the ninth 

 or tenth ray of the soft dorsal fin instead of only 

 to the fifth or sixth ray); its pectoral feelers are 

 more slender and tapering; its caudal fin is 

 square-ended instead of concave in rear outline; 

 and its reddish or olive-brown sides (the general 

 ground tint varies) are marked longitudinally 

 with a dusky or bronze-brown stripe below the 

 lateral line. The first dorsal fin shows the same 

 black or dusky blotch betweeen the fourth and 

 fifth spines, so characteristic of the common 

 robin. The pectorals are orange to brown with 

 pale edges, their centers washed with dusky, but 

 without the definite crossbars characteristic of the 

 common sea robin. The pectoral filaments are 

 pale brown or orange, marked with narrow 

 brown bars. (The common sea robin does not 

 show these bars.) 



Size. — This is a larger fish than the common 

 sea robin, growing to a maximum length of about 

 18 inches. 



General range.- — Shoal water along the Atlantic 

 coast of North America from South Carolina to 

 Cape Cod, reaching the Gulf of Maine as a stray 

 from the south. 



Occurrence in the Gulf of Maine. — This southern 

 fish rounds Cape Cod so seldom that there are 

 only 6 definite records for it from the Gulf of 

 Maine: Monomoy; North Truro; Salem; Glouces- 

 ter; Monhegan Island, Maine (its most north- 

 erly outpost) where one was taken in an otter 

 trawl at 40 fathoms, November 19, 1933; and 

 the eastern part of Georges Bank, whence one 

 was brought in to the U. S. Fish Commission some- 

 time between 1877 and 1880. We have never 

 seen it north or east of the elbow of Cape Cod. 



Armored sea robin Peristedion miniatum Goode 

 1880 



Jordan and Evermann, 189&-1900, p. 2178. 



Description. — The armored robin resembles the 

 sea robins in general body form, and in the ar- 







Figure 247. — Armored sea robin {Peristedion miniatum), 

 side view (above) and top view of head (below). Con- 

 tinental slope off Martha's Vineyard. From Goode and 

 Bean. Drawings by H. L. Todd. 



