A Record of Polyprion americanus (Bloch and Schneider) from the Northwestern Atlantic

Abstract

A SMALL specimen of the wreck-fish (Polyprion americanus) has been received by the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Dr. A. H. Leim, Director of the Fisheries Experimental Station, at Halifax, Nova Scotia, who in turn received it from W. C. Smith & Co., Ltd., of Lunenberg. fish was found by Capt. Newman Wharton of the Jean and Shirley, under a piece of floating wreckage, on the southern part of the Grand Bank, in Lat. 44 50' N., Long. 50 20' W., early in August, 1929. This record appears to be only the third for the northwestern Atlantic:' the previous ones are of a small fish taken on the Grand Bank about 1880, by a Gloucester fishing vessel, and another about 10 inches long taken with hook and line, 8 miles off Asbury Park, New Jersey, in August, 1910, and recorded by Dr. R. C. Osburn in the Bulletin of the New York Zoological Society for November, 1910. A fourth record from the eastern American coast is that of Cuvier and Valenciennes (1831: 475) who mention a specimen about 2 feet long from the mouth of the La Plata River, given by fishermen to M. d'Orbigny. Other locality records of this fish, besides those from America just mentioned, include Europe fromn Norway to the Mediterranean; Madeira and Canary Islands; Cape of Good Hope and the southern Indian Ocean (St. Pauls Island: Lat. 38 43' S., Long. 77 38' E.). wreck-fish appears to be most plentiful in the Mediterranean and neighboring parts of the Atlantic, especially around Madeira, where Lowe (1843-60: 183-189) speaks of it as one of the commonest and best known fishes in the market. There it is called Shern or Sherny. Describing its capture Lowe writes: The Sherny in Madeira is only captured by the hook; and though shoals of small fishes, weighing from five to twenty pounds, and called Chernotta, are said to be often taken near the surface, in the neighborhood of floating wreck or logs of wood, the proper habitat of the full-sized fish, weighing from thirty to one hundred pounds, is from one to two or three leagues from shore, and at the enormous depth of from twelve to fifteen or sixteen linhas, or from three hundred to four hundred fathoms. With a strong line of this length, to the bottom of which is tied a stone (called the pendula) of three or four pounds' weight, and having attached immediately above the stone, at intervals of eighteen inches, from twelve to fifteen strong hooks, baited with pieces of Cavallo (Mackerel) or Chicharro (Madeiran Horse-Mackerel), I have frequently assisted at