POLYCHAETE WORMS, PART 1 173 



Maryland, with, greatest concentration in waters about Long Island. 

 Maine has been the heavy producer for the past 20 or more years; 

 since 1949, they have been dug commercially in Canada. In the years 

 1946 to 1954 in Maine, on the average 123,308 pounds, with a yearly 

 value of $76,986.00 were marketed (Dow and Wallace, 1955). 



To be of commercial importance, the worms have to be at least 20 

 cm. long (about 8 inches). They are collected in wooden boxes and 

 shipped by air express in a moist fibrous type of seaweed which is 

 found in the salt marshes of Nova Scotia {Ascophyllum machaii and 

 A. nodosum). It is generally beheved that they reach minimum 

 marketable size sometime after their first year, and that the larger 

 worms taken in the commercial fishery are probably in their third year. 

 They are thought to carry out their spawning effort toward the end of 

 their third year. After spawning, all or nearly all of the spent spawners 

 die. 



During the reproductive season, the sexually mature adults leave 

 their burrows and swim at the surface; they have been observed swim- 

 ming in shallow waters along the shores, in tide pools, sometimes 

 swarming in immense numbers both in the daytime and evening; some- 

 times scores of spent males are observed. They emerge from the mud 

 or gravel as the tide rises, then disappear again. In Maine they have 

 been observed swarming in the middle of March to late in June, some- 

 times extending into August (Gustafson, 1953). In New Hampshire 

 at Emerson Beach, mouth of Oyster River, swarming of spent males 

 were observed hi April (April 11, 1955, E. Swan; up to 160 mm. long, 

 13 mm. wide, 135 segments). In Massachusetts, the height of the 

 breeding season appears to be in March (Bumpus, 1898a; Gray, 1900). 

 Some sexually mature shghtly modified heteronereids were found 

 swimming in tide pools at Scituate in April (April 2, 1957, J. E. 

 Hanks). 



The swarming of smaller worms (about 180 mm. long, 11 mm. wide) 

 was observed by Mr. Milton Gray at Barnstable from the end of 

 February to the first of April, the worms swimming close to the flats 

 at half tide to lov/ tide; Mr. Gray also observed larger ones (up to 270 

 mm. long, 25 mm. wide) along the Cape Cod Canal in May (May 2 

 and 16, 1954; May 5-8 and 19-22, 1955; May 8-10 and 23-26, 1956), 

 the worms swimming at the surface in the evening shortly before or 

 after the change of tide during the new moon and full moon. In Rhode 

 Island they have been observed in March and April (Bumpus, 1898a, 

 Verrill and Smith, 1874); some sexually mature adults were found at 

 Sakonnet Point, swimming about in tide pools (March 16, 1957, 

 J. E. Hanks) . At Whitstablc, England, they spawn during spring tides 

 in the middle of April, when swarms of adults become pelagic (Newell, 

 1954). 



