REPRODUCTION OF THE MENHADEN. 573 



renders it evident that they have Lad no food since leaving the coast in autumn. The latter con- 

 sideration, -since they are bottom-feeders, is the strongest confirmation of the belief that their win- 

 ter home is in the inidoceauic substrata. 



ABUNDANCE. As is indicated by the testimony of many observers, whose statements are else- 

 where reviewed at length, the Menhaden is by far the most abundant species of fish on the eastern 

 coast of the United States. Several hundred thousand are frequently taken in a single draft of a 

 purse seine. A firm in Milford, Connecticut, captured, in 1870, 8,800,000; in 1871, 8,000,000; in 

 1872,. 10,000,000; in 1873, 12,000,000. In 1877, three sloops from New London seined 13,000,000. 

 In 1877, an unprofitable year, the Pemaquid Oil Company took 20,000,000, and the town of Booth 

 Bay alone 50,000,000. There is no evidence whatever of any decrease in their numbers, though 

 there can be in the nature of the case absolutely no data for comparison of their abundance iu 

 successive years. Since spawning Menhaden are never taken in the nets, uo one can reasonably 

 predict a decrease in the future. 



FOOD. The nature of their food has been closely investigated. Hundreds of specimens 

 have been dissected, and every stomach examined by me has been found full of dark greenish or 

 brownish mud or silt, such as occurs near the mouths of rivers and on the bottoms of still bays 

 and estuaries. When this mud is allowed to stand for a time in clear water, this becomes slightly 

 tinged with green, indicating the presence of chlorophyl, perhaps derived from the alga, so 

 common on muddy bottoms. In addition to particles of fine mud the microscope reveals a few 

 common forms of diatoms. 



There are no teeth in the mouth of the Menhaden, their place being supplied by about fifteen 

 hundred thread-like bristles, from one-third to three-quarters of an inch long, which are attached 

 to the gill-arches, and may be so adjusted as to form a very effective strainer. The stomach is 

 globular, pear-shaped, with thick, muscular walls, resembling the gizzard of a fowl, while the 

 length of the coiled intestine is five or six times that of the body of the fish. The plain inference 

 from these facts, taken in connection with what is known of the habits of the Menhaden, seems to 

 be that their food consists in large part of the sediment, containing much organic matter, which 

 gathers upon the bottoms of still, protected bays, and also of the vegetation that grows in such 

 localities. They also, as was demonstrated by Mr. Rathbun in 1880, feed very extensively upon 

 the minute crustaceans, Copepoda, etc., which are found in great quantities swimming near the sur- 

 face iu the summer months all along our coast. 



Their rapid increase in size and fatness, which commences as soon as they approach our 

 shores, indicates that they find an abundant supply of some kind of food. The oil manufacturers 

 report that in the spring a. barrel offish often yields less than three quarts of oil, while late in the 

 fall it is not uncommon to obtain five or six gallons. 



REPRODUCTION. There is a mystery about their breeding. Thousands of specimens have been 

 dissected since 1871 without the discovery of mature ova. In early summer the genitalia are quite 

 undeveloped, but as the season advances they slowly increase in size and vascularity. Among the 

 October fish a few ovaries were noticed in which the eggs could be seen with tin- naked eye A 

 school of large fish driven ashore in November, in Delaware Bay, by the bluetish, contained spawn 

 nearly ripe, and others taken at Christmas time, in Provincetown Harbor, evidently stragglers acci- 

 dentally delayed, contained eggs quite mature. Young Menhaden from one to three inches in 

 length and upward are common iu summer south of New York, and those of live to eight inches 

 in late summer and autumn in the southern part of New England. These are in schools, and make 

 their appearance suddenly from the open ocean like the adult fish. Menhaden have never been 

 observed spawning on the Southern coast, and the egg-bearing individuals when observed are 



