512 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



high salinity that tends to move inward along the 

 bottom from offshore. But most of them live 

 between 8-10 fathoms and perhaps 45 fathoms in 

 the waters with which we are most immediately 

 concerned. During the years when ocean pouts 

 were in demand (see below), good catches were 

 made as shoal as 10 to 12 fathoms in the south- 

 western part of the Gulf, also off southern New 

 England. 41 And we have seen large numbers 

 caught from party boats, at 8-17 fathoms along 

 the coast of New Jersey. 



We have taken ocean pouts in the Gulf of 

 Maine on sandy mud, on sticky sand, on broken 

 bottom, also on pebbles and gravel. They are 

 caught in large numbers on smooth hard bottom 

 and we have seen many more of them taken 

 from party boats off northern New Jersey on 

 rocky bottom, along with sea bass (p. 407), tautog, 

 cod, and other fishes, than were taken on soft 

 bottom when we were fishing for hake (Urophycis). 



There is no evidence that they carry out any 

 extensive migrations. However, information has 

 accumulated recently to the effect that the adults 

 congregate through the summer, autumn, and 

 early winter on rocky bottoms where the eggs 

 are deposited and guarded, to disperse again in 

 midwinter (after the eggs have hatched), over 

 the smoother grounds in the vicinity where food 

 is more plentiful. 42 And this spawning migration 

 appears to be complicated by an autumnal shift 

 offshore to deeper water, with a return movement 

 in spring, in coastal regions where the bottom 

 water chills in winter to a temperature too low 

 for their comfort; in the Bay of Fundy, for example 

 (p. 514), and perhaps in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



The ocean pout can be classed as a cool-water 

 fish, for the great majority of them, in whatever 

 part of their geographic range, are in temperatures 

 at least no higher than about 62°, throughout 

 the year. At the other extreme, they have been 

 taken in 32° in the Bay of Fundy (p. 514); in 

 about 31° to 32° in Trinity and Conception Bays, 

 Newfoundland. 43 And eelpouts are exposed to 

 temperatures as low as this, in spring, in the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, unless they descend deeper 

 into the Laurentian Channel, which they may do. 



Food. — The American ocean pout feeds on a 

 wide variety of shelled mollusks, univalve and 

 bivalve, on crustaceans large and small, on echino- 

 derms and on other invertebrates. The Bay of 

 Fundy fish opened by Clemens and Clemens had 

 dieted chiefly on the two common mussels, Mytilus 

 and Modiolaria, on whelks {Buccinum) , periwinkles 

 (Littorina), and on scallops (Pecten) as well as 

 on various other bottom-living mollusks, on sea 

 urchins, brittle stars, and barnacles. A large 

 specimen caught in Massachusetts Bay, January 

 1924, was packed full of brittle stars (ophiurans), 

 spider crabs, and small sea scallops (Pecten magel- 

 lanicus) ; a number trawled by the Albatross III at 

 42 fathoms, near Nantucket Lightship, May 17, 

 1950, were full of small sea scallops (Pecten magel- 

 lanicus), as many as 100-200 per fish. Olsen 

 and Merriman 44 write that sand dollars (Echin- 

 arachnius) were the chief items in the stomach 

 contents of some 850 ocean pouts taken in the 

 southwestern part of our Gulf and off southern 

 New England, with crabs (Cancer) and isopod 

 crustaceans (Unicola) as seconds; while some had 

 eaten bivalve mollusks (Yoldia and Pecten) in 

 large amounts; also the eggs of the longhorn 

 sculpin (p. 451), which are often laid among the 

 branches of the finger sponge (Chalina).. 



Ocean pouts bite on fish as greedily as they do 

 on clams or cockles, and pouts kept in the aquar- 

 ium at St. Andrews took fish as readily as clams; ** 

 while two of the fish opened by Clemens and 

 Clemens, 49 and also Bay of Fundy fish examined 

 by Olsen and Merriman, 47 contained remains of 

 fish. But in all probability about the only fish 

 they get are dead ones that have sunk to the 

 bottom, or occasionally a small one that a pout 

 may have the good luck to catch. The European 

 representative of our ocean pout (Zoarces vivi- 

 parus) is described 4S as taking in mouthfuls of 

 weeds for the crustaceans and mollusks living 

 among these, and as swallowing a considerable 

 amount of the plant material with its animal prey. 

 But American ocean pouts appear not to feed in 



" Olsen and Merriman, Bull. Bingham Oceanographic Coll., vol. 9, art. 

 4, 1946, p. 37, 38, fig. 3. 



• This shift of grounds has been demonstrated recently by Olsen and 

 Merriman (Bull. Bingham Oceanog. Coll., vol. 9, art. 4, 1949, p. 40-42). 



• Rept. Newfoundland Fish. Res. Comm., vol. 1, No. 4, 1932, p. 109. 



« See Olsen and Merriman, (Bull. Bingham Oceanog. Coll., vol. 9, art. 4, 

 1946, p. 124-129) for a list of stomach contents, with discussion. 



*• As reported by WUley and Huntsman, Canadian Field Naturalist, vol. 

 35, 1921, pp. 6-7. 



" Contrib. Canadian Biol. (1918-1920) 1921, p. 80, small fish, including a 

 smelt. 



" Bull. Bingham Oceanogr. Coll., vol. 9, art. 4, 1946, p. 129; probably 

 herring. 



" By Blegvad, Report Danish Biol. Stat. (1916), 1917, p. 42. 



