176 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. vol.39. 



fied in the other. It indeed mangles fishes caught with it in a net, 

 but it does so in unreasoning wrath and not for food. 



That organization which so weU fits the fish for a conchifragous 

 habit, however, renders it capable of inflicting severe injuries on 

 fishes and even man, if occasion provokes or requires. Conscious of 

 its power, it disdains to flee, and will even attack one who intrudes 

 on its near neighborhood. Goode tells that it is "pugnacious in the 

 extreme" and has been "known to attack furiously persons wading 

 at low tide among the rock-pools of Eastport," Maine. In Olsen's 

 Piscatorial Atlas of the North Sea (1883) "divers are warned not to 

 meddle with this fish in the water, or he will be sure to make an 

 attack." It may in fact bite at any object presented to it. 



The wolffish's strength of jaw and tenacity of hold are remarkable. 

 Buckland relates that the smaller of two fishes caught in a trawl 

 "on being brought on deck bit at a mop handle which was held out 

 to it so savagely that it was swung overboard without letting go 

 its hold. When it was shaken off, one of its teeth was left behind it 

 fastened in the wood." A full-grown fish, it is claimed, "can snap 

 a broom handle in two with the greatest ease." Steller saw a knife- 

 blade readily broken by one. 



IV. 



Sexual maturity may be attained by the common wolffish when a 

 length of not much more than 2 feet (possibly less in exceptional 

 cases) has been attained, but generally spawners are considerably 

 larger. Fulton (1890) examined 59 specimens of completely "ripe 

 fish" and the smallest was 27 inches long, while the largest was 42 

 inches. The average length of the 59 was nearly 3 feet (34.8 inches). 



The relative proportion of the sexes seems to be somewhat excep- 

 tional. According to the expressed opinion of some naturalists, and 

 the recorded observations of 59 specimens by T. Wemyss Fulton 

 (1890), the males appear to be not only larger but more numerous 

 than the females. Of the 59 examined by Fulton 33 were males and 

 26 females; the average length of the former was 29.4 inches and of 

 the latter only 27.6 inches, the females being thus only 87/100 as 

 large as the males. The general impression was later expressed by 

 M'Intosh and Masterman in the statement that "the females are 

 smaller in size than the males and are in a slight minority." 



Fulton, as late as 1905, considered that the spawning season of 

 "the common species has not yet been well determined," but that 

 "M'Intosh and Masterman are probably right in supposing that the 

 main spawning time of this fish is from November to January, with 

 a margin on either side." At any rate, it is deferred till the commence- 

 ment of cold weather or winter. Mature eggs were found, however, 

 in one fish caught as early as the "6th August," in 1904, but this 

 case was quite exceptional. 





