92 
Fishery Bulletin 99(1 ) 
were not abundant in spring and early summer; therefore 
Penobscot Bay does not appear to be a primary nursery 
area for these species. Possibly the numbers of spawning 
adults of these species are low in the bay or the pelagic 
eggs that they produce are dispersed before hatching, or 
both the number of spawning adults are low and the pe- 
lagic eggs they produce are dispersed before hatching. Pe- 
nobscot Bay appears to act as a nursery for many fishes; 
therefore degradation of water quality during the vernal 
period would have wide reaching effects on the nearshore 
fish community. 
Acknowledgments 
I would like to thank Captain Kevin Lapham for his excel- 
lent command of the RV Nucella and Lou VanGuelpen 
of the Atlantic Reference Center at Huntsman Marine 
Laboratory, New Brunswick. Stan Chenoweth and three 
anonymous reviewers provided helpful comments to an 
early draft. This study was supported by a grant from the 
National Environmental, Data, and Satellite Information 
Service (NESDIS) through the Island Institute, Rockland, 
Maine. 
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