winter migration come in contact with the schools from the north, other. wise the parasites would naturally be communicated. If it iubabits the mouths of the fish only while they remain inshore, and has therefore a fixed faunal relation to certain parts of the coast, it may be concluded that the menhaden of particular schools are like, the anadromous fishes, restricted to particular portions of the coast, and that those schools which enter the southern inlets in spring do not proceed farther north in their migration, but remain in those localities throughout the season. Still other conclusions may be forced upon the investigator: it may be that the adult Cymothoa never quits its position in the mouth. of the fish, and that the young only swim about in search of unoccupied quarters, and in this case it need not necessarily follow that the parasite would be communicated by southern to northern fish if they were to find their winter homes in the same waters. The study of this curious parasite and its habits will at any rate prove interesting and instructive.* Other parasites. 141. The menhaden seems remarkably free from other parasites, and especially from intestinal worms, not one of which has been met with in numerous dissections. Leeches are occasionally found upon the gills, and there are one or more species of lernæans. Mr. Hance Lawson, of Crisfield, Md., refers to one of these, saying that "there is a five pronged insect sometimes found on the tail which makes a sore and which we call grappling"-a name doubtless referring to its shape, which might call to mind a grappling iron; several other correspondents refer to a parasite which is unmistakably a lernæan. I know of only one described species of crustacean parasitic upon the species, and this is found also upon the alewife. It is the Lerneonema radiata (Lesueur) Stp. and Ltk., first described in 1828. It is found figured in the first report of the United States Commissioner of Fisheries, plate VII, Fig. 30, and below, plate X. 26.-PREDACEOUS FOES. Whales and dolphins. 142. Man, with his instruments for wholesale destruction, takes six or seven hundred millions of these fish annually, but he is only one of its many enemies. Whales follow the schools and consume them in great numbers. Mr. E. B. Phillips states that fin-back and hump-back whales always appear in Massachusetts Bay when the menhaden come. According to Capt. John Grant, keeper of the light-house on Matinicus Rock, Maine, "The whale rises beneath them as they play upon the surface and, with extended jaws, forces himself up through the school with such speed as to project his body half out of water, closing his jaws over large quantities of fish as he falls heavily back." * This paragraph was written two years before paragraphs 84-91. Mitchill remarks: "The whalemen say he is the favorite food of the great bone-whale or Balana mysticetus. This creature, opening his mouth amid a school of menhaden, receives into its cavity the amount of some hogsheads of menbaden at a gulp. These pass one by one head foremost down his narrow gullet; and eye-witnesses have assured me that on cutting up whales after death great quantities of menhaden had been discovered thus regularly disposed in the stomach and intestines."* I have seen fin-back whales apparently feeding in this way at the eastern end of Long Island Sound. Schools of dolphins and porpoises follow the menbaden, consuming them in immense numbers, and seals are said to be among their persecutors. Mr. Dudley informs me that in 1877 the fish left the sound on the 12th of October; on the 19th enormous quantities were driven back by a school of 30 or 40 whales which the fishermen saw playing off shore. Sharks. 143. Sharks prey largely upon the menhaden. Capt. B. II. Sisson has seen 100 taken from the stomach of one shark. Mr. D. T. Church gives an account of the destruction of a school off Seaconnet, R. I. "They were lying," he writes, " apparently undisturbed, when a school of sharks appeared among them. The havoc was fearful. One gang of fishermen had their seine in the water at the time, and they completely destroyed it; they were so ugly that they would seize the end. of an oar as if it were a fish." Mr. E. E. Taylor, of Newport, R. I., gives an amusing account of the habits of the thresher shark (Alopias vulpes): "The heaviest shark we have around here is the thresher shark; they feed on menhaden. I saw a thresher shark kill with his tail, which was nearly eight feet long, half a bushel of menhaden at one blow, and then he picked them up off the water. They come up tail first, and give about two slams, and it is "good-by, John,' to about half a bushel of menhaden." This story should be taken cum grano salis, but still may contain a few grains of truth. The horned dog-fish (Squalus americanus) and the smooth dog-fish (Mustelus lævis), the smallest representatives in our waters of the shark family, doubtless do more injury than their larger brethren by reason of their great abundance. The former are so voracious that when they make their appearance all other fishes are driven away. When the dog-fish "strike on," an experienced fisherman always pulls in his lines or his nets and abandons his work. Other fishes. 144. All the large carnivorous fishes prey on the menhaden. The horse mackerel or tunny (Orcynus thynnus) is one of the most destruc*Trans. N. Y. Lit. and Phil. Soc., 1, 1815, 453. + Report of Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1871-'72, p. 28. tive in certain localities. "I have often," writes Mr. George R. Allen, of Brooklin, Me., "observed these pests, with the most imaginable indignation, in their destruction of these fish, and watched their antics from the masthead of my vessel, rushing and thrashing like demons among a school of fish, darting with almost lightning swiftness through them, scattering them in every direction, and throwing hundreds into the air with their tails." This is doubtless the barracoutar spoken of by Maine fishermen. Boardman and Atkins accuse the pollock (Pollachius carbonarius) and the whiting or silver hake (Merlucius bilinearis) of much damage done. In reference to the latter they write: "It is known to pursue both herring and menhaden. The former it devours in great numbers, and at Grand Manan a great many of the smaller ones are sometimes caught in the herring-nets. In Bluehill Bay, in Kennebec River, and doubtless in other places, it is caught in the weirs, and the Brooklin fishermen often take it in their seines with menhaden. Its teeth are rather long and remarkably sharp, and they are charged with wounding a good many menhaden which are afterward caught with their sides and backs lacerated as if in that way."* The striped bass (Roccus lineatus) is destructive, and so is the sque teague or weakfish (Cynoscion regalis) and its southern representative, the spotted squeteague or so-called "sea trout" (Cynoscion carolinensis.†) I have found a ménhaden a foot in length in the stomach of a squeteague. In the southern rivers the gar-fish (Lepidosteus osseus), the "trout" (Micropterus nigricans), and the cat-fishes (Silurida) with the tarpum, (Megalops thrissoides), are said to be its worst enemies. I have found menhaden to be the only thing in the stomachs of specimens of the latter species, taken on the northern coast in summer, and it is probable that these were attracted from their usual haunts in pursuit of their favorite food. The sword-fish (Xiphias gladius) destroys many, rushing through the masses of fish, striking right and left with its powerful weapons. From examination of their stomachs it would appear that the bayonetfish (Tetrapturus albidus) also feeds extensively upon them. The codfish is said to eat many of them, and this seems quite probable, for these fish bite freely at a menhaden bait. The bluefish and the bonito. 145. The bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix) with the bonito (Pelamys sarda) are, however, their most destructive enemies, not even excepting man. Mr. Simpson, examining a great many of the bluefish caught on the North Carolina coast in the summer of 1874, found from one to three "fatbacks" in the stomach of each. These corsairs of the sea, not content with what they eat, which is of itself an enormous quantity, rush Op. cit., p. 14. A southern correspondent speaks of finding eight menhaden in the stomach of one sea tront. ravenously through the closely crowded schools, cutting and tearing the living fish as they go, and leaving in their wake the mangled fragments. Traces of the carnage remain for weeks in the great "slicks" of oil so commonly seen on smooth water during the summer season. Menhaden driven ashore. 146. The terrified fish fly in every direction, and are often driven ashore in great numbers. Mr. Church states that the bluefish sometimes come into Massachusetts and Narragansett Bays in such force as to completely exterminate the menhaden, driving them ashore in great Dumbers. Mr. James H. Bell, keeper of Mispillion River Light, Delaware Bay, writes that about November 7, 1874, the shores of the bay from Lewes up to Mispillion River were lined with dead fish, bitten to death by the bluefish, or snapping mackerel as it is there called. Many of the dead fish were without tails, and all were more or less mutilated. Many other cases may be mentioned where the fish were thus floated ashore, but whether their death is to be traced to the persecutions of the bluefish or to some epidemic prevailing at the time can never be certainly known. Mr. David F. Loring, keeper of Highland Light, Truro, Mass., has seen hundreds of barrels of them cumbering the shore in the western part of Provincetown Harbor, driven up by bluefish, and has also seen them thrown ashore in numbers at the mouth of the Merrimac River. About 1856 they were thrown up on the coast of Maine in such quantities that the people in the vicinity were obliged to bury them as a sanitary measure. Capt. Joseph Hardy second, light-house keeper at Chatham, Mass., states that in 1832 they drifted ashore on the southeastern point of Cape Cod in such numbers that the inhabitants were summoned to bury them in pits, for fear of a pestilence, and that the same thing occurred a few years later. Mr. B. Lillingston, of Stratford, states that large numbers are sometimes washed up along the coast of Connecticut in September and October. Mr. F. Lillingston, of the same place, has seen thousands dead upon the shore, some with "a reddish blotched appearance, others eaten as if by cancer." According to Mr. Albert Morris, they floated ashore by tons at Somers Point, New Jersey, in October, 1873. Mr. Isaac D. Robbins, keeper of Hog Island light station, Maryland, states that in August, 1852, he saw a great many dead ones, about two inches in length, in Swangut Creek, on the Eastern Shore, near the line between Maryland and Virginia. He attributes their death to the effects of the warm weather. According to Mr. Wallace R. Jennett, they have sometimes drifted ashore on Cape Hatteras in such abundance that the stench of the decomposing mass was almost unendurable. Capt. David Kemps, of Yellow Bluffs, Fla., writes that about the year 1870 the menhaden in the Saint John's River died in large numbers and were washed ashore upon the banks. The Newport (R. I.) Daily News of June 13, 1870, states: "Millions of fish, principally menhaden, scup, and young shad, have been driven on to the New Jersey and Long Island shores the past week. Cores, rivers, flats, inlets, and ditches have been so full that farmers have gathered them up by the common pitchforks and shovels, carrying off thousands of cart-loads to manure the land. It is supposed that these schools of small fry were driven inshore by the bluefish." Mr. Phillips has known them driven by the bluefish up the great rivers of Maine until they died and were washed ashore by thousands. Captain Spindel on the ravages of the bluefish. 147. Capt. Isaiah Spindel, manager of a fish-pound at the eastern extremity of Buzzard's Bay, states: "I do not think pound-fishing is a quarter as bad as bluefish for destroying fish. A bluefish will destroy a thousand fish in a day. When they get into a school of menhaden you can see a stream of blood as far as you can see. They go into them and they will destroy the whole school before they let them go. I think menhaden are more scarce than they used to be. They put up the guano factory here (at Wood's Holl) on account of menhaden being so plenty then. Twenty five or thirty years ago there were no bluefish, and menhaden were plenty. Only once in a while were there any bluefish there. Finally the bluefish got so plenty they drove all the menhaden out of the bay. There are plenty of menhaden up in the heads of the harbors; some bluefish will go up and drive them up as far as they can, but bluefish don't like to go up into fresh water. Squeteague will swallow menhaden whole. I have seen bluefish and squeteague throw the food out of their stomachs when caught. I think the bluefish fill their stomachs and then empty them just for the fun of the thing, so as to catch more fish. I have seen them go into a school of menhaden and catch some and throw them up again, and then go in again. I could not swear they throw the stuff up, but I am positive that it is so. I have seen the fish all chewed up thrown out in the water. They often bite and swallow a part and leave the rest.”* Professor Baird on the destructiveness of the bluefish. 148. Professor Baird, in his well-known and often-quoted estimates of the amount of food annually consumed by the bluefish, † states that probably ten thousand millions of fish, or twenty-five hundred millions of Testimony in regard to the present condition of the fisheries, taken in 1871. <Report of the United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1871-72, pp. 68–70. # Natural History of Important Food-Fishes of the south shore of New England. II.—The Bluefish (Pomatomus saltatrix, (Linn.) Gill. Report of United States Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1871-'2, p. 241-22. |