PLANKTON OF THE GULF OF MAINE 
73 
Taken by itself, the absence of larvae, contrasted with the presence of eggs, could 
as well result from a drift of the latter out of the bay before hatching — such, indeed, 
as the circulation of water would call for — as from their failure to hatch locally or of 
the larvae to survive. But there are two objections to this view, to my mind unan- 
swerable ; first, that larvae and young fry of these several species are fully as rare along 
the eastern shores of Maine — that is, in just the waters into which the outflow from the 
bay debouches — as within the latter; second, that the drift into the southern entrance 
of the bay would naturally bring with it gadoid and flatfish eggs from the shallows 
off western Nova Scotia. Some of the cunner (Tautogolabrus) larvae produced in 
St. Marys Bay, which Huntsman (1922) has found to be an important site of repro- 
duction for this fish, must likewise find their way into the Bay of Fundy either around 
Brier Island or through the passages; but so few of them survive the conditions they 
encounter in the Bay of Fundy, that none have been recorded from all the winter 
and summer towing which has been done from the St. Andrews station. 
Most of the common fishes that do succeed in breeding in large numbers in the 
bay lay demersal eggs; for instance, the several sculpins (Cottidse), the lumpfish 
(Cyclopterus), the rock eel ( Pholis gunnellus), the winter flounder ( Pseudopleu - 
ronectes americanus), and the herring. The rosefish (Sebastes) and the eelpout 
(Zoarces), which are viviparous, produce young far advanced in development. 
The evidence just summarized justifies the hypothesis that while young fish 
hatched in the bay from demersal eggs, or such as are far developed as to size and 
fins at hatching, thrive there, most of the very small and helpless larvae produced in 
the bay from pelagic eggs, or which enter it as immigrants from the south, perish. 
Hence we may speak of the Bay of Fundy as a deathtrap to buoyant eggs and larvae 
drifting northward along the eastern shores of the gulf, and it contributes none of 
these to the coastal waters to the westward. Even the very abundant stock of young 
herring produced about the mouth of the bay (notably at Grand Manan) do not 
spread far to the westward, Huntsman having found that they soon become contra- 
natant and begin to work back against the current, which takes them out of the 
planktonic category. 
An understanding of the causes that prevent successful development in the 
bay would make it possible to estimate the probable suitability, from east to west, 
of the waters along the eastern coast of Maine, where eggs are certainly produced 
in some abundance but where few larvse have been taken. Huntsman (1918) suggests 
the violent tidal stirring in the bay as responsible, by preventing vertical strati- 
fication of the water. The low surface temperature may also be an effective check 
to species such as the cunner, which spawn in high temperatures. Neither of these 
factors, however, would seem likely to interfere with the successful breeding of late 
autumn, winter, or spring spawners — the American pollock and the haddock, for 
instance. Further light on this interesting question, to which our own work has 
contributed nothing, is to be expected from the investigations now being carried 
out at St. Andrews by the Biological Board of Canada. 
From Mount Desert eastward the coastal belt of the gulf more and more closely 
approximates the Bay of Fundy hydrographically, owing to the increasing strength 
of the tides and the consequent activity of tidal mixing. Correspondingly, 
