DISTEIBUTION OF THE EOSB-FISH. 261 



The temperature range of the Eose-flsh corresponds closely to that of the halibut, and its 

 limits will, on more careful study, probably be found included between 32° and 50°. It is found 

 everywhere on the shallow off-shore banks north of Cape Cod, where it attains its greatest size. 

 A specimen, brought in by one of the Grloucester halibut schooners, was about two feet in length 

 and weighed about fourteen pounds. Along the Maine coast they are much smaller than this, 

 rarely exceeding eight or ten inches and the weight of twelve ounces, but occasipnally growing to 

 the weight of one and a half pounds. 



In Scandinavia there have been recognized two. species : one, a large, orange-colored form, 

 inhabiting deep water, known to the Norwegians as the "Eed-flsh" (Eod-flsk), and considered to 

 be S. marinus {S. norwegicus) ; the other, a smaller species of much deeper. color, called the 

 " Lysanger," and described by Kroyer under the name " S. viviparus," and by Ekstrom as " iS. 

 regulus.^ After the most careful study of all the specimens in the National Museum, we have 

 been unable to recognize more than one species on our coast, and recent Norwegian ichthyologists, 

 among them especially Mr. Eobert Collet, believe that the two Norwegian forms are not actually 

 distinct species, but that the smaller one is simply a pigmy race which is especially adapted 

 to life in the long, shallow fiords of that region. Dr. Liitken, always conservative, is inclined to 

 believe the two forms distinct, regarding»'the large fish of the deep water as the primitive type 

 from which the smaller littoral form has peen derived by development. According to the last- 

 mentioned authority, the two forms have very different geographical distribution, 8. viviparus 

 inhabiting the shallows in the vicinity of the Faroe Islands, Southern Sweden, Norway, and New 

 England, but unknown to Great Britain, Denmark, Finmark, Iceland, and Greenland; while & 

 mariniis is found in Greenland and Iceland and all the length of the Norwegian coast, in Spitzher- 

 gen, Baren Island, on the coasts of Denmark, and occasionally in the north of England and 

 Ireland. Possibly, he suggests, it iniabits the' deep waters at a distance from shore, off the Faroe 

 Islands and North America, but that is not yet certainly known. 8. viviparus, then, he declares,, 

 is a form less arctic as well as more littoral.' 



This subject is here referred to in the hope that additional observations may be drawn out 

 tending to settle the question whether or not there are two forms of Sebastes on the ■•American 

 coast. It seems, however, improbable, since the physical conditions are so different from those 

 under which they occur on the other side of the Atlantic. 



The food of the Eose-flsh consists, like that of its cousins, the Sculpins, of small fish, crusta- 

 ceans, and, to some extent, of mollusks, although its teeth are not formed for crushing the thick- 

 shell species. InGreenland they are said to feed upon the pole-flounder. A specimen taken off" 

 Eastern Point, Gloucester, in July, 1878, had its throat full of shrimp-like crustaceans (Mysis sp.), 

 and others, taken at Eastport, were feeding extensively on a larger crustacean [Thysanopoda sp.), 

 which is also a favorite food of the mackerel. They may be caught with almost any kind of bait, 

 but are not, like their associates, the cunners, given to feeding upon refuse substances, and, being 

 also more shy and watchful, cannot be captured in bag-nets. They breed in summer, from June 

 to September, in deep holes in Massachusetts Bay and off" the coast of Southern New England, 

 where it has not been uncommon for the Fish Commission to obtain thousands of young one, 

 two, and three inches long, at one set of the trawl-net, and also adults full of spawn. The young 

 are lighter in color than the adults, and are conspicuously banded with reddish-brown upon a 

 grayish ground. The young constitute a favorite food of the codflsh, while, at all ages, they are 

 preyed upon by the halibut and other large predaceous fishes of the cold-water districts. 



'1879. LttTKBN, Chr. : Forelobige Meddelelser om nordiske Ulkefiske (Cottoidei). <Aftryk af Vidensk. Meddel. 

 naturh. Foren. 1870, pp. 355-388. 



