39 o AMERICAN FISHES. 



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

 been dissected since 187 i 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 the naked 

 eye. A school of large fish driven ashore in November, in Delaware Bay, 

 by the bluefish, contained spawn nearly ripe, and others taken at Christmas 

 time, in Provincetown harbor, evidently stragglers accidentally delayed, 

 contained eggs quite mature. Young Menhaden from one to three inches 

 in length and upward are common in summer south of New York, and 

 those of five 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 indi- 

 viduals when observed are always heading out to sea. These considera- 

 tions appear to warrant the theory that their breeding grounds are on the 

 off-shore shoals which skirt the coast from George's Banks to the Florida 

 Keys. There are indications, too, that a small school of Menhaden 

 possibly spawn at the east end of Long Island in the very early spring. 



The fecundity of the Menhaden is very great, much surpassing that of 

 the Shad and Herring. The ovaries of a fish taken in Narragansett Bay, 

 November 1, 1879, contained at least 150,000 eggs. 



Among its enemies may be counted every predaceous animal which 

 swims in the same waters. Whales and dolphins follow the schools and 

 consume them by the hogshead. Sharks of all kinds prey upon them 

 largely ; one hundred have been taken from the stomach of one shark. All 

 the large carnivorous fishes feed upon them. The tunny is the most de- 

 structive. "I have often," writes a Maine observer, "watched their 

 antics from the masthead of my vessel — rushing and thrashing like demons 

 among a school of fish ; darting with almost lightning swiftness, scattering 

 them in every direction, and throwing hundreds of them in the air with 

 their tails." The pollock, the whiting, the striped bass, the cod, the 

 squeteague, and the gar-fish are savage foes. The sword-fish and the 

 bayonet-fish destroy many, rushing through the schools and striking right 

 and left with their powerful swords. The blue-fish and bonito are, how- 

 ever, their most destructive enemies, not even excepting man ; these corsairs 

 of the sea, not content with what they eat, which is of itself an enormous 



