HABITS AND LIFE HISTORY OF THE TOADFISH. I 107 



Sueur (1824) could find no specimens longer than 5K inches. De Kay (1842) 

 gives the average size as 6 inches, but had seen them up to i foot long. Goode 

 (1884) says of the "northern variety" {Batrachus, now Opsanus, tau) that it 

 rarely exceeds 10, 12, or at the most 15 inches in length, and quotes Silas 

 Stearns, that the southern species {Batrachus, now Opsanus, pardus) frequently 

 attains the length of 18 inches. Jordan and Evermann (1898) give the length 

 as 15 inches, meaning, I take it, that this is the maximum. Miss Clapp (1899), 

 writing ot the Woods Hole toadfish, says that a specimen 1 2 inches long is seldom 

 met with. Smith (1907) fixes the maximum size for Beaufort specimens at 

 15 inches. The writer's experience is that a 12-inch specimen is rather rare, 

 and that the average length of sexually mature fish is from 7 to 10 inches. 

 Hence if a fish in one year attains a length of from 3 to 4 inches it will probably 

 require two to three years to attain sexual maturity and three to four years 

 (since growth takes place more slowly as the fish becomes older) to attain the 

 average maximum size. 



The largest fish of this species ever seen by the writer was 14K inches 

 long, a veritable giant of his kind. He was anesthetized and carefully meas- 

 ured. These measurements are herewith reproduced: Length, tip of nose to 

 end of caudal, Ij^H inches; width across head, ^14, inches; width between 

 eyes, \j4 inches; girth of head, 4?'8 inches; girth of body at anterior base of 

 pectorals, 11 "s inches; girth of body at posterior base of pectorals, 11 !< inches; 

 girth of body at anus, 6^ inches; mouth (wide open) width, angle to angle, 

 2,% inches; height, top to bottom, i^s, inches. 



LITERATURE CITED. 



Agassiz, Alexander 



1 88 1. On the young stages of some osseous fishes. Proceedings American Academy Arts and 

 Sciences, vol. 14, pt. 2, p. 1-25, pi. iii-x. 



Ayres, William O. 



1842. Enumeration of the fishes of Brookhaven, Long Island, with remarks upon the species 

 observed. Boston Journal of Natural History, vol. iv, 1842-1844, p. 255-292. 



Bean, T. H. 



1891. Observations upon fishes of Great South Bay, Long Island, New York. 19th Report Com- 

 missioners of Fisheries of State of New Y'ork for 1890, p. 237-281, pi. i-x.xvi. 



Block, Marcus Elieser 



1782. Oeconomische Naturgeschichte der Fische Deutschlands. Atlas, pi. Lxvii, fig. 2 and 3. 



