284 Memoir Sears Foundation for Marine Research 



southwest, in the central parts of the Gulf, and over Georges Bank. Those picked 

 up during the warmer months either in mackerel seines or in otter trawls are mostly 

 very fat and show no signs of approaching sexual maturity. It seems that these "fat" 

 fish, like the sardines, merely sink down close to the bottom for the winter wherever 

 they may be. 



About all that is known of the mature spawn stage in the western Atlantic is that 

 these fish live mostly some distance offshore near bottom and appear in vast num- 

 bers in their spawning areas at spawning time. In the Gulf of Maine, most of them 

 seem to drop out of sight after having spawned; the large ones caught there out of 

 spawning season fall in the fat category. But there is no reason to suppose that they 

 travel far during the interval (between spawning time and winter) when they are 

 feeding greedily to recover condition sufficiently for spawning again the next year. In 

 fact, it is probable that they, like the other two stages in the Gulf of Maine, merely 

 descend into deeper water to winter, as has long been known to be their custom in 

 European waters. How deep the great body of them may go is not known, but the 

 contour of our continental shelf is such that no fish need swim any great distance to 

 reach water deeper than 50—75 fms. anywhere between Cape Cod and the Gulf of 

 St. Lawrence. It seems likely also that they spend the winter in deep water in the 

 southern part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but definite information in this regard 

 is lacking. On the southern and western coasts of Newfoundland, however, where 

 spawning takes place in the spring, the mature fish "move off into deeper water in 

 summer" (J25: 2,^) but return late in the autumn to their natal bays, where they 

 have long supported important November— January fisheries. 



Food and Feeding. Atlantic Herring feed on plankton — first on diatoms and other 

 unicellular organisms, then on copepods and their eggs following the yolksac stage 

 (9J: 252). In summing up her rather extensive investigations at Plymouth, England, 

 Lebour {jg: 463) listed the following by stages of growth; before disappearance of 

 the yolksac: larval gastropods, green food (probably diatoms and flagellates), larval 

 bivalves, nauplii and other young stages of small Crustacea, as well as the eggs; after 

 disappearance of the yolksac up to about I2 mm: the same, but with small adult 

 copepods added; after 12 mm and probably until metamorphosis: copepods; after 

 metamorphosis: copepods, decapod crustaceans, amphipods, and fish. 



Only two kinds of food were found in about 1 500 examples taken off East- 

 port, Maine [g^: 401). Moore said that "One of these [foods] consisted of copepods 

 ('red seed'), which appeared to constitute the sole food of the small herring, the so- 

 called brit, and a considerable portion of that of the larger individuals from 5^/2 inches 

 upward." But the principal food of the larger fish was euphausiid crustaceans 

 {Meganyctiphanes norwegicd), known to local fishermen as "shrimp." These are so Im- 

 portant In the diet of this species that it seems likely that the appearances and disap- 

 pearances of large fish in the open waters of the Gulf are correlated with the presence 

 or absence of euphausiids of one kind or another. Concerning their capture, Moore 

 remarked : 



