250 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



New York at about the same time, for none are taken there in winter according to reports 

 of fishermen J in fact, there is no record of their capture between mid-December and early 

 May anywhere to the northward of the offing of Chesapeake Bay. 



Numerical A bundance. Along southern New England and on the mid-Atlantic coast 

 of the United States the Smooth Dogfish is the second most numerous shark, although fall- 

 ing far short of the Spiny Dogfish {Squalus acanthius, p. 466). Old accounts report occa- 

 sional catches of as many as 100 at a time in pound nets during their periods of abundance, 

 with 10 to 20 on a hand line not exceptional in a few hours' fishing, though catches of 5 or 6 

 in this way are more usual. More precise information is that 373 specimens were brought 

 in to the Laboratory of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries at Woods Hole during an investiga- 

 tion of the food of the species, in the summer of 1 903, from pound net catches varying from 

 I to 41, and averaging about 7. It is also described as the most common local shark in 

 Uruguayan waters at the opposite extreme of its geographic range (p. 251). While the 

 populations of the intervening regions (Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico) have attracted 

 very little attention, they may be numerous there also, for Smooth Dogfish are common 

 around Cuba'* and have been so described around Bermuda." 



Relation to Man. In spite of its abundance the Smooth Dogfish is of no commercial 

 importance except for classroom study in schools, for which purpose considerable numbers 

 are preserved yearly. Many are caught incidentally by anglers, for they bite freely when 

 fish or squid are used for bait, and they usually take the hook more freely by night than by 

 day, as so many sharks do. But few anglers consider them game fish. 



Range. Western Atlantic; abundant northward to Cape Cod during part of year, 

 occasionally to Massachusetts Bay, and as a stray to Passamaquoddy Bay at the mouth of 

 the Bay of Fundy; southward to Texas, Cuba, the Caribbean region, central Brazil (Rio 

 de Janeiro) and Uruguay; also Bermuda. Present indications are that several more or less 

 isolated populations of Smooth Dogfish exist, their areas of distribution being separated 

 one from the next by wide gaps between which little or no intermigration occurs. The best 

 known of these populations is found along the coasts of the Middle Atlantic United States. 

 To the northward the Smooth Dogfish occurs regularly as far as Cape Cod, but only 

 as a stray in the southwestern part of the Gulf of Maine (odd specimens reported from 

 time to time for different localities in Massachusetts Bay), while only a single speci- 

 men has been reported from farther north, i.e., from St. Andrews on Passamaquoddy Bay 

 at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy. What the barrier may be to a more general dispersal 

 of them into the Gulf of Maine is not clear. Since they may appear on the coast of southern 

 New England when the temperature has not yet risen above 7° to 8° C, and since they are 

 most plentiful there during June when the water is still only 13° to 15° C, it is unlikely 

 that their failure to pass Cape Cod more regularly or to reach Georges Bank at all is 

 the result of temperature. Nor is there any other obvious explanation, for it seems hardly 



18. Personal communication from Luis Howell-Rivero. 19. Goode, Bull. U.S. nat. Mus., 5, 1876: 73. 



