in a tagging experiment conducted off Annapolis, 

 Maryland in July and August 1931 . Out of a 

 total of 305 fish tagged, 9 were recaptured south 

 of the point of release in the Bay and 80 were 

 recovered north of the point of release. Pear- 

 son concluded that there was little movement 

 from the Upper to the Lower Bay. Vladykov 

 and Wallace (1952:165-172) found that specimens 

 tagged in the middle Chesapeake Bay during the 

 summer and fall remained where they had beer 

 released during the summer but in October 

 moved slowly southward, mainly along the west 

 shore of the Bay. They also found that the pop- 

 ulations in the James and Potomac Rivers were 

 relatively stationary. Raney (ms.) concluded 

 on the basis of counts of spines in the first 

 dorsal fin and the soft rays of the dorsal and 

 anal fins that three subpopulations are present 

 in the tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay, namely 

 those of the James River, the York -Rappahan- 

 nock and the Upper Bay Rivers. Gill raker 

 counts also support this view. Using a series 

 of statistical tests for samples from the 1955 

 year class based on the number of gill rakers 

 on the upper arm and also the total number of 

 gill rakers, the samples from the James River 

 were separated from samples of all other rivers 

 in the Chesapeake Bay that were studied. By the 

 same procedure the York -Rappahannock River 

 subpopulation was found to be significantly dif- 

 ferent from the James cind Upper Bay River 

 subpopulations. All the rivers on the west shore 

 north of the Rappahannock River and all the 

 east shore rivers that were sampled were con- 

 sidered to belong to a homogeneous Upper Bay 

 subpopulation as the statistical tests did not 

 show that there were any highly significant dif- 

 ferences among these rivers. Evidence of these 

 three subpopulations was supported by the 

 samples from the older year classes also. 



Merriman (1941:44-46) and Vladykov and 

 Wallace (1952:172) indicated that there was in- 

 significant movement of bass between the 

 Chesapeake Bay and Albemarle Sound. Tables 

 42 and 43 give a general overall relationship be- 

 tween the sample means and show gill raker 

 counts to be similar for the two areas. Com- 

 parisons, using t - tests, between the Albemarle 

 Sound and the Chesapeake Bay populations showed 

 that the Upper Chesapeake Bay subpopulation 

 was more closely related to the population from 

 Albemarle Sound than were the James and York- 



Rappahannock subpopulations . 



Raney (1954:383 and 396) indicated that 

 the populations from the Delaware River and 

 from the coastal rivers of New Jersey are closely 

 related to the Chesapeake race. Gill raker counts 

 point to the close relationship between the popula- 

 tions from the Delaware River and the Chesapeake 

 Bay. 



The next most important source of striped 

 bass north of the Delaware River is that of the 

 Hudson River population. Raney, Woolcott and 

 Mehring (1954:394), reporting on the results of 

 a tagging program, found that the Hudson River 

 population seldom migrates eastward beyond 

 Fairfield, Connecticut or Northport, Long Island 

 in the western quarter of Long Island Sound; on 

 the southside of Long Island the eastern limit was 

 the area of Jones Beach. They concluded from 

 fin ray counts that there is an upstream popula- 

 tion in the Hudson River above Haverstraw and 

 that in some years below Haverstraw there ex- 

 isted a population derived from the Chesapeake 

 Bay population or one that had similar characters. 

 Raney (ms.) has modified this earlier view and 

 considers the Hudson River samples as one pop- 

 ulation . Evidence for this is that the first dorsal 

 spines are relatively constant throughout a wide 

 range in the Hudson River and tlie soft dorsal and 

 anal rays, even though there was a significant 

 increase in downstream samples, were con- 

 sidered relatively small compared to differences 

 that would indicate a racial separation . Gill 

 raker counts also support the view that one popula- 

 tion exists in the Hudson River. 



The Hudson River population has the high- 

 est gill raker counts of any population samples 

 in this study. Ancestors of the striped bass now 

 found in California were collected from northern 

 New Jersey in 1879 and 1881. Gill raker counts 

 of recent samples from California approach 

 those from the Hudson River and indicate a close 

 relationship between the two. 



Results of gill raker counts of samples 

 from the western end of Long Island Sound are 

 between those from the Hudson River and Chesa- 

 peake Bay populations . This may be due to the 

 presence of some stock of Chesapeake origin that 

 have intermingled with those from the Hudson 

 River population. Raney, Woolcott and Mehring 



12 



