Fishes of the JVestern North Atlantic 249 



the year, for they have been found in ocellata collected in Block. Island Sound in April, 

 May, August, November and February. A female, probably of this species, that was 

 brought to Woods Hole laid an egg in the aquarium on January 16 and laid six more 

 within a few days; the embryos were well advanced by May 12, but none had hatched 

 by June 16, after which they were lost."' 



Numerical Abundance. R. ocellata has been characterized as common or as abun- 

 dant about as often for one sector of its range as for another. But the only precise infor- 

 mation regarding its numerical abundance with which we are acquainted is that one 

 trawler, in 37 hauls, took 71 R. ocellata out of a total of 495 Skates of all kinds on 

 Georges Bank in September 1929,"^ and that another trawler obtained an average 

 hourly catch of 22.4 pounds with an 80-foot trawl in Long Island Sound from August 

 1943 to January 1944,®" or about five specimens per hour, if the average weight were 

 about five pounds. This would correspond to about 300 specimens per square mile if 

 the bottom strip swept by the trawl were about 50 feet broad, if the distance covered 

 were two sea miles per hour, and if the trawl caught every Skate that lay in its path, 

 which it certainly did not. 



Range. Continental waters of the western North Atlantic from the offing of 

 northern North Carolina to northern Nova Scotia, southern side of the Gulf of St. Law- 

 rence, and Newfoundland Banks. 



Details of Occurrence. R. ocellata is generally distributed, if not very common, 

 along the southern side of the Gulf of St. Lawrence from the Cape Breton shore to 

 the Magdalen Islands, including Prince Edward Island, and it has been described as 

 very common at Canso. It has been reported also by name for various localities along 

 the periphery of the Banks of Newfoundland and has been identified from the southern 

 part recently.'"" To the southward it has been taken at Banquereau Bank, Sable Island 

 Bank, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, and fishermen are familiar with it throughout this 

 general region to the mouth of the Gulf of Maine. It is well known in the Bay of Fundy, 

 including the Passamaquoddy Bay region, and it has been taken at nearly all localities 

 around the northern and western parts of the Gulf of Maine, in Massachusetts Bay, 

 and off Cape Cod where information is available as to the composition of the local 

 fish fauna. On Georges Bank,!"' as well as on Nantucket Shoals, it forms an appreciable 

 proportion of the Skate population. It occurs regularly in season (p. 248) along the coast 

 of southern New England, in the vicinity of New York (Sandy Hook and lower New 

 York bays), along New Jersey,"* Delaware, and the Atlantic Coast of Virginia, and 

 within the mouth of Chesapeake Bay; it also occurs on the offshore fishing grounds off 

 New York and New Jersey, and it has been recorded in 1 6 fathoms off Bodie Island, North 

 Carolina. But we find no report and have seen no specimen of it from farther south. 



97. This specimen was reported as R. lae'vh (Seal, Aquarium, 2 [lo], 1914: 105); but it seems likely that it was an 

 ocellata because of its size (15 in. wide) and because of the season at which it deposited its eggs. 



98. Bigelow and Schroeder, Bull. U. S. Bur. Fish., 48, 1936: 324. 



99. Merriman and Warfel, Trans. 9th N. Amer. Wildl. Conf., 1944: 234. 

 100. Information from Wilfred Templeman. 



loi. 14 "/o °f the Skates caught on one trip to Georges Bank in September 1929 were K. ocellata. 

 102. Reported from many localities, including Delaware Bay. 



