Fishes of the Western North Atlantic 463 



from the Gulf of Maine to North Carolina may have consisted of them. The United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries reported about 1,250,000 pounds for 1938. 



From a practical aspect the Spiny Dog in the western Atlantic is chiefly important 

 because it is undoubtedly more destructive to gear and interferes more with fishing opera- 

 tions than does any other fish — shark or teleost. Its habit of taking the bait is proverbial. 

 In fact, when Dogfish are plentiful, hook and line fishing for cod, haddock and other 

 ground fish is often actually prevented unless cockles (Lunatia) are used for bait. Still 

 more serious is the damage they do by tearing and biting nets, biting snoods off long lines, 

 attacking netted or hooked fish and by driving away better fish. It has been estimated that 

 in these ways they do some $400,000 worth of damage annually off the coast of Massachu- 

 setts alone, and perhaps much more in their periods of abundance.*" 



Range. Both sides of the North Atlantic, chiefly in temperate to subarctic latitudes; 

 also both sides of the northern Pacific south to California, Japan, northern China and the 

 Hawaiian Islands (as pointed out on page 453, suckleyi appears to be indistinguishable 

 from acanthias). It is represented in the corresponding thermal belt of the southern 

 hemisphere (South Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Oceans, South Africa) by relatives so close 

 that it is still an open question whether or not any valid specific distinctions can be drawn." 



Occurrence in the Eastern Atlantic. The chief center of abundance for the Spiny 

 Dog is from the Atlantic coast of France north to Ireland, Scotland and southern Scan- 

 dinavia, including the English Channel and the North Sea in general, and as far eastward 

 as the Kattegat. But it rarely enters the Baltic. The Spiny Dogfish is plentiful around the 

 Orkneys, Faroes, and south and east of Iceland in season, but less so to the north and west; 

 it occurs regularly ofi^ Norway and as far north and east as the Murman coast. It is also 

 generally distributed in the Mediterranean and in the Black Sea. To the southward it 

 occurs commonly off Morocco and is reported from the Canaries, Madeira and Senegal. 



Occurrence in the Western Atlantic. Fishermen are familiar with it in season all along 

 the coast from North Carolina to Nova Scotia and on the southern side of the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence, as well as offshore on Nantucket Shoals, on Georges and on Browns Banks 

 and on the Nova Scotian and Newfoundland Banks. It is common northward along both 

 coasts of Newfoundland and is known past the Straits of Belle Isle to southeastern Labra- 

 dor. It is also recorded on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from Red Bay. And 

 specimens have been taken on the west coast of Greenland at Sukkertoppen and Holstein- 

 borg, no doubt these being visitors with the summer drift of Atlantic water. But there is no 

 record of it on the east coast of continental North America to the north of Hamilton Inlet. 



Southward it is a yearly visitor as far as Cape Lookout, North Carolina. But it is 

 doubtful whether it occurs coastwise any further in that direction in numbers, for while 

 it has been described repeatedly as plentiful in East Florida waters, and around Cuba and 

 Trinidad, the former report seems likely to have referred to some other fish,*" the latter 



40. For detailed records and discussion, see Rep. Comm. Fish. Game Mass. (1905), 1906: 97; (1906), 1907: 20. 



41. For discussion of this question, see p. 453. 



42. Evermann and Bean (Rep. U.S. Comm. Fish. [1896], 1898: 239) describe it as "probably the most abundant 



