Table 4.— OoKraphic breakdown of food of (he silver hake, Merluccium bilineariii. in the northwest Atlantic. 

 Data are expressed as pertrntaKe weiKhl, for Tish collected during the spring and autumn bottom trawl 

 sur\e> cruises l%9-72. (t indicates present but <U.I'7c.) 



tiphanes (5.4 and 9.6' c, respectively). In the Gulf of 

 Maine, Meganyctiphanes was again the major crus- 

 tacean prey (8.0'c). The shrimp Pasiphaea (4.4%) 

 replaced the pandalids, but Dichelopandalus (0.5%) and 

 Pandalus borealis (0.3%) were still eaten in small quan- 

 tities. In Western Nova Scotia euphausiids (28.4%), 

 especially Meganyctiphanes (13.4%), were the only crus- 

 taceans of any significance. 



The Mollusca were the only other taxonomic grouping 

 to warrant discussion and here only in the Middle Atlan- 

 tic. Cephalopods accounted for 13.6% of the diet with 

 Loligo (8.3%) and Rossia (1.2%) being the two genera 

 identified. 



White hake, Urophycis tenuis. — White hake fed 

 heavily on fish (Table 5). In Southern New England, 

 silver hake (18.1%) and Atlantic mackerel (16.6%), were 

 the most important prey, but "Other Pisces," such as the 



butterfish (2.8%) and wrymouth (1.7%), were also iden- 

 tified in the stomach contents. White hake taken from 

 Georges Bank were also found to prey on silver hake 

 (6.0%), but other gadids, such as red hake (7.7%), had- 

 dock (3.8%), and to a lesser degree, longfin hake (0.3%), 

 were important. Clui>eids represented almost half the 

 fish eaten (27.7'f), and of these almost half (12.rf) were 

 identified as Atlantic herring. The Clupeidae also 

 contributed heavily to the diet of white hake in the Gulf 

 of Maine (17.5%) and at least part of the remains was 

 identified as Atlantic herring (6.6%). Atlantic mackerel 

 (9.6%) also accounted for some of the prey as did a 

 number of fish in the "Other Pisces" category (47.2%). 

 Some of these other fish were Argentina situs (16.6%); 

 the wrymouth (l.l'c); pearlsides (0.1' c); and the sand 

 lance, Ammodytes (0.1'c). In Western Nova Scotia, 

 Atlantic cod (2.2%), longfin hake (1.3%), and white hake 

 (0.4%) contributed to the gadid prey. The redfish (4.1%), 



10 



