q 



x 



o 



-WORM 1 

 WORM 2 



8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 

 TIME.HR 



Figure 4.— The time required for assorted sizes of bloodworms and sandw orms to acclimate to 32% . (A) Bloodworms dug from an interstitial salin- 

 ity of 19.52%„, transported to the laboratory in 16.09°„ o , and acclimated to 32°/ 00 . (B) Sandworms dug from an interstitial salinity of 22.00%,, trans- 

 ported to the laboratory in 16.49% . and acclimated to 32% . 



avoid harvesting the fragile bloodworms that are approaching 

 spawning condition in May. Diggers harvest slightly more female 

 bloodworms than males. Potential bloodworm spawners are not 

 evenly distributed along the coast; they were never collected east of 

 the Taunton River (Sullivan, Maine) during 4 yr of commercial 

 sampling. There are four possible sources of bloodworms recruited 

 into the commercial fishery in eastern Maine. Trochophores (or 

 juveniles) produced from the excellent spawning stocks in Nova 

 Scotia (Klawe and Dickie 1957), may be carried on counterclock- 

 wise currents across the Bay of Fundy to eastern Maine. Evidence 

 for these currents in the spring and summer is presented by Graham 

 (1970) and also by Bumpus and Lauzier (1965). It is also possible 

 that close inshore currents move clockwise and transport tro- 

 chophores (or juveniles) from the abundant spawning stocks in the 

 Taunton River and Sullivan Harbor to eastern Maine. Recruitment 

 may occur from unknown subtidal or intertidal spawning commu- 

 nities in eastern Maine. However, since the worm digger is a 



hunter, it is unlikely that any large intertidal digging areas contain- 

 ing spawners could exist without the diggers' knowledge of them. 

 An unlikely possibility is that the survival rate of the bloodworm 

 trochophores produced by the rare spawners reportedly found by 

 diggers in eastern Maine is exceptional and accounts for the excel- 

 lent sporadic worm sets reported for numerous areas. 



The 6-mo means reported in Table 10 show that approximately 

 5-7% of the catch consists of bloodworms with regenerated tails. 

 Broken bloodworms comprised approximately 12-13% of the 

 catch. 



Table 1 1 shows that the 6-mo mean lengths ( ± 1 SE) for sand- 

 worms were 26.11 ±0.98 cm (1973), 26.22 ±0.68 cm (1974), 

 26.77 ±0.53 cm (1975), and 25.69±0.42 cm (1976). These means 

 are also not significantly different from one another at 95% confi- 

 dence limits ( ± 1 .96 SE). 



Sandworms spawn during March , April , and May and sand worm 

 diggers also avoid picking up spawning worms. We waited until 



14 



