THE BLUEFISHES 



Family XXXIX. Pomatomida 



THIS family contains only one genus and one species. 



Common Bluefish 



Pomatomns saltatrix (Linnaeus) 



The bluefish is a species of very wide distribution. It occurs 

 in both the Atlantic and Indian oceans, and occasionally enters 

 the Mediterranean Sea. It occurs in the Malay Archipelago, Aus- 

 tralia, at the Cape of Good Hope, at Natal, and about Madagas- 

 car. It has never been seen on the Atlantic Coast of Europe, 

 nor about Bermuda. On our coast it ranges from central Brazil 

 and the Guianas through the Gulf of Mexico, and north to Nova 

 Scotia, though -never seen in the Bay of Fundy. From Cape 

 Florida to Penobscot Bay, bluefish are abundant at all seasons 

 when the temperature of the water is propitious, which probably 

 is above 40. The menhaden seems to be their principal food 

 and their abundance is largely dependent upon the presence of 

 that species. The bluefish is a pelagic or wandering fish, very 

 capricious in its movements, varying in numbers at particular 

 localities in different years, and sometimes disappearing from cer- 

 tain regions for many years at a time. 



The bluefish is a carnivorous animal of the most pronounced 

 type. As Professor Baird has well said, there is no parallel to 

 the bluefish in point of destructiveness to the marine species on 

 our coast. It has been likened to an animated chopping-machine 

 the business of which is to cut to pieces and otherwise destroy 

 as many fish as possible in a given space of time. Going in 

 large schools, in pursuit of fish not much inferior to themselves 

 in size, they move along like a pack of hungry wolves, destroy- 

 ing everything before them. Their trail is marked by fragments 

 of fish and by the stain of blood in the sea, as, when the fish 

 is too large to be swallowed entire, the hinder portion will be 

 bitten off and the anterior part allowed to float or sink. It has 



320 



