FISHES OF OUR NORTH ATLANTIC SEABOARD 
63 
the Butter-fish family. It reaches a length of lo 
inches, and has the peculiar habit of swimming 
under the Portuguese Man-of-War, probaWy 
gathering the scraps that fall from the table of 
that fish, as well as enjoying protection from its 
enemies. 
The Poppy Fish {Palometa simillimd) found on 
the sandy shores of California is a close duplicate 
of the Dollarfish, and the San Francisco epicure 
pays a high price for it, supposing it to be Pompano, 
though admitting that the Pompano of the Florida 
coast has a finer flesh and better flavor. 
SCUP (Stenotomus chrysops) 
{For illustration see Color Plate, page pp) 
The Scup belongs to the Porgy family, which 
also includes the Porgies and the Sheepsheads. 
The Scup {Stenotomus chrysops) ranges between 
Cape Cod and the Carolinas. It is the Scup in 
New England, the Porgy in New York, and the 
Fair Maid farther south, getting back to the Porgy 
again at Charleston. New Englanders often call 
it the Scuppaug, a corruption of the Narraganset 
Indian name, Muscuppanog. As a food fish it is 
one of the commonest and is highly esteemed for 
its flavor. A bottom-feeder, the Scup’s diet is 
largely made up of Mollusks, small crustaceans, and 
worms. Along the South Atlantic coast the Scup 
is replaced by a closely related species Stenotomus 
aculeatus. 
ATLANl'IC SALMON (Salmo salar) 
{For illustration see Color Plate, page 50) 
Eighteen hundred years ago Pliny wrote that 
the Salmon surpassed all the fishes of the sea in 
the river Aquitania. That is the earliest allusion 
to Salmo salar known in literature, and although 
scores of other species have been identified, still 
Salmo salar is the Salmon outside of the can¬ 
neries of the Pacific, which utilize other species. 
The species inhabits both sides of the Atlantic 
and ascends the rivers as far as it can go in the 
spawning time, going up the St. Lawrence and 
through Lake Ontario to Niagara Falls. 
At least half the Salmon’s life is spent in the 
ocean, recalling Izaak Walton’s remark that “he 
is ever bred in fresh rivers and never grows big 
but in the sea. . . . He has, like some other 
persons of honor and riches which have both their 
winter and summer houses, the fresh water for 
summer and the salt water for winter to spend his 
life in.” 
The Connecticut River once teemed with Salm¬ 
on, but dams exterminated the species therein. 
The same fate has befallen them in many other 
rivers. 
The young fish stay in fresh water for one or 
two years, and then wander out to sea, although 
they weigh only a few ounces when they go. There 
they find congenial food and grow rapidly. In 
that pleasant environment they remain until sum¬ 
moned, as Dr. Goode says, by the duties of family 
life to return to the narrow limits of the old home. 
When they live in the lakes they prey on Minnows 
and other small fishes, but those of the sea delight 
also in small crustaceans and crustacean eggs, to 
which they are said to owe the vivid color of their 
flesh. The habits of successive generations be¬ 
come hereditary traits and the differences in their 
life histories are held by many authorities to 
justify the belief that the land-locked Salmon is 
merely a variety of Salmo salar. 
Although the Salmon, like the Trout, spawn 
with a falling temperature, not depositing their 
eggs before the water has dropped to 50 degrees, 
they seem to enter the rivers on a rising tempera¬ 
ture. In the Connecticut they appear in April 
and May, in the Merrimac in May and June, and 
in the Penobscot in June and July. 
Temperature changes do not influence the move¬ 
ments of the Salmon as much as those of other 
species. It is said that two-thirds of the colony 
belonging to a particular river may be found in 
it in any season. This high proportion is made 
up of half the colony, less than a year old, and the 
breeding fish, which remain in the rivers six or 
seven months after the spawning season. 
When they leave the ocean, they first enter the 
brackish water at river mouths, where they remain 
for several weeks; then they start for the spawning 
grounds, which they usually reach in late summer. 
At the approach of the spawning season their 
trim shapes and bright colors disappear, leaving 
them lank and misshapen, with fins thick and 
fleshy and skin slimy and blotched. This trans¬ 
formation takes place especially in the males. The 
jaws become so curved that they touch only at 
the tip, the lower of which develops into a large 
and powerful hook, used as a weapon in the savage 
combats which they stage with their rivals. 
When the newly hatched Salmon appear they 
are about three-fourths of an inch long and the 
yolk sac is visible on them for from four to six 
weeks. When this is absorbed the youngling begins 
to feed, readily seizing any minute floating object. 
In two months it has grown to one and one-half 
inches and begins to assume the vermilion spots 
and transverse bars which it retains until it begins 
its descent to the sea, when it adopts a uniform 
bright silvery coat. After remaining in the sea for a 
period of from 4 to 28 months, it heads back to 
land, and then dawns the time that every fisherman 
loves, for at this stage nothing in the water sur¬ 
passes it in symmetrical beauty, brilliancy, agility, 
and pluck. Christopher North has called it “a 
salmon fresh run in love and glory from the sea. 
. . . She has literally no head; but her snout is 
in her shoulders. That is the beauty of a fish, 
high and round shoulders, short waisted, no loins, 
but all body and not long of terminating—the 
shorter still the better—in a tail sharp and pointed 
as Diana’s, when she is crescent in the sky.” 
SWORDFISH (Xiphias gladius) 
{For illustration see Color Plate, page 5/) 
The Swordfish ranges in Atlantic waters from 
Cuba to Cape Breton. The extent of its range is 
attested by the fact that the Dutch call it the 
7 ivaard-Jis; the Italians, ^Sofia; the Spaniards, 
F.spada; and the French, Epee de Mer. Aristotle 
named it Xiphias some twenty-three centuries ago. 
It rivals the Sharks both in size and strength, 
sometimes reaching a weight of 800 pounds, al¬ 
though most of those caught weigh less than half 
as much. It usually appears on the shoals and 
banks in June and stays until the colder fall months 
set in. It is believed to come out of the deeper 
waters in search of food, since its spawning grounds 
are not in shallow regions. It apparently follows 
the Menhaden and Mackerel. Old fishermen have 
a saying that where you find Mackerel you may 
