THE MENHADEN FISHERY. 



BY G. BROWN GOODE AND A. HOWARD CLARK. 



1. NATURAL HISTORY AND COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE OF MENHADEN. 



The uieiibaden (Brtveortia tyrannus) is a fish of the family Clupeidse. It is known along the 

 Atlantic coast by numerous names. In Maine the common names are pogy, bouyfish, menhaden, 

 and mossbunker; in Massachusetts it has also the names hardhead and poggie; among fishermen 

 of Rhode Island it is called menhaden, mossbnnker, and bony-fish; in Connecticut it is known as 

 whitefish, bonyfish, menhaden, and bunker; New York fishermen call it bonyfish, mossbunker, 

 and menhaden; in New Jersey the common name is mossbunker; in Delaware we find the name 

 uiossbuuker, oldwife, and bugfish ; in Maryland and Virginia the names are old wife, cheboy, ell- 

 wife, alewife, bugfish, greentail, bughead, and wife; in North Carolina it is known as fatback, bug- 

 fish, menhaden, and yellow-tail shad; in South Carolina the name is commonly menhaden, or moss- 

 bunker; in Georgia, menhaden, and in Florida, menhaden, mossbuuker, and fatback. 



In length the menhaden is about the same as the common sea herring, but is deeper and more 

 robust in appearance. Its weight, when full grown, is from two-thirds of a pound to one pound. 

 A large specimen, of which a cast is preserved in the National Museum, measured 20 inches in 

 length, while the average length is from 12 to 15 inches. At the menhaden factories, in estimating 

 the number of fish in a certain bulk, 22 cubic inches are allowed to each fish. 



The geographical range of this fish is along the Atlantic seaboard from Maine to Florida, its 

 northern limit of migration being the Bay of Fundy, while its southern limit is Mosquito Inlet, on 

 the Florida coast. It is found in bays and rivers as far inland as brackish water extends, and it 

 ranges oceanward as far as the Gulf Stream. Other species of menhaden occur in the Gulf of 

 Mexico, along the South American coast, and on the west coast of Africa, but none resembling it 

 are found in the Pacific Ocean. The fishery is limited to the Atlantic M aboard of the United States. 



Schools of menhaden make their appearance in the coastal waters upon the approach of 

 warm weather and they remain until the cooling of the water drives them away, the temperature 

 most favorable for them being from 00 to 70 Fahrenheit. Along the coasts of the Southern 

 States they appear earlier and remain longer than farther north. In Chesapeake Bay they usually 

 appear in March and April, on the New Jersey coast in April and early in Way, and along the 

 shores of Southern New England in the latter part of April and May; at Cape Ann about May 

 15, and along the coast of Maine in the latter part of May and the 1st of June. Since 1879 these 

 fish have not appeared north of Cape Cod, except in very limited quantities, though they were 

 formerly very abundant along the Massachusetts coast. In the autumn they usually begin to 

 leave the Maine coast in September, and, gradually working to the southward, or perhaps seaward, 

 disappear from Long Island Sound in November and December, from Chesapeake Bay in Decem- 



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