Sparidae — porgies 



Stenotoiniis rhrij.^oj.'s (Linnaeus), scup. 

 Small scup were caugiit in September and 

 October 1961 and in July to October 1962 

 (table 10. fig. 3). We judged that all 

 were 0-group fish on the basis of growth 

 data given by Bigelow and Schroeder 

 (1953) and Finkelstein (1969). The ap- 

 pearance of fish 15 to 30 mm. long in early 

 July 1982 indicated that some of the young 

 ended pelagic life at about that size. The 

 fish caught in 1962 were progressively 

 longer from early July to early October. 

 There was no apparent length increase 

 after early Octobei'. 



Table 10. — Numbprs ami lengths of .scup caught with 

 an otter trawl near Woods Hole, Mass., September 

 1961 to December 1962. (Scup were caught only 

 in the semimonthly periods shown.) 



Date 



Nuinber 



Fork length 



Mean 



Range 



1961 



Mm. 



Mm. 



The scup left the Woods Hole area abrupt- 

 ly in the autumn, and their dejiarture 

 coincided with sharp drops in water tem- 

 perature. For example, for approximate- 

 ly equal amounts of trawling the following- 

 numbers of scup were caught on successive 

 trawling dates in October 1961: October 

 4, 354 fish; October 12, 423; October 19, 

 47; October 26, 0. In this period the 

 water temperature dropped from 19.4 to 

 13.0° C. (table 1, fig. 2). Scup were less 

 numerous in 1962, but the pattern of 



autumn departure in relation to temper- 

 ature was similar to that in 1961 (fig. 3). 



Labridae — wrasses 



Tuntogolabrus udtipcrsus (Walbaum), 



cunner. 



Gunners were caught from September to 

 early December in 1961 and from late 

 March through November in 1962 (table 

 11, fig. 3). They were rare or absent 

 during the coldest months. This species 

 spawns in spring and early summer (Big- 

 elow and Schroeder, 1953), and the fish 

 30 to 59 mm. long in 1961 were judged 



Table 11. — Numbers and lengths of cunners caught 

 with an otter trawl near Woods Hole, Mass., Sep- 

 tember 1961 to December 1962. (Cunners were 

 caught only in the semimonthly periods shown.) 



1962 



Mar. 16-31 ,_ __ ._ 2 36 35-38 



Apr. 1-15 __ .- -_ 5 39 33-49 



Apr. 16-30 __ _. .. 6 46 37-59 



May 1-15 .. .. __ 4 44 39-50 



May 16-31 __ .. __ 6 47 36-59 



June 1-15 _- __ -_ 7 65 50-75 



June 16-30 .. __ __ 7 61 55-71 



July 1-15 7 21 17-27 11 91 52-151 



July 16-31 24 24 15-37 32 94 57-176 



Aug. 1-15 34 33 21-46 22 87 60-155 



Aug. 16-31 20 39 26-54 31 101 66-201 



Sept. 1-15 39 42 28-59 25 92 63-150 



Sept. 16-30 18 50 36-62 6 75 67-85 



Oct. 1-15 7 43 34-56 2 83 77-90 



Oct. 16-31 17 48 39-62 3 87 82-95 

 Nov. 1-15 1 59 

 Nov. 16-30 2 54 53-55 



' Assumed to be young of the year on the basis of 

 data given by Bigelow and Schroeder (1953) and by 

 the seasonal progression of length frequency distribu- 

 tions in the 1961-62 fish. 



