16— ON THE FOOD OF THE MENHADEN. 



BY JAMES I. PECK, PH. D., 



Williams College, Massachusetts. 



The studies of the menhaden (Brevoortia tyrannus) upon which this paper is based 

 were made at the station of the U. S. Fish Commission at Woods Holl, Mass., during 

 the summer of 1893, the material for this purpose having been collected in the same 

 general region between July 10 and September 10. Menhaden were comparatively 

 scarce in this vicinity during the period mentioned; no specimens were obtained from 

 the open waters of Vineyard Sound and very few from Buzzards Bay, but in the 

 smaller tributary bays, brackish-water estuaries, and shallow lagoons they were 

 present, and sometimes abundant, as in the mouth of the Acushnet River, at New 

 Bedford, where they spend the entire summer within a comparatively small area. 

 The same may also be said of most of the other brackish-water inlets investigated, as 

 explained below. 



The material thus studied is therefore quite sufficient to demonstrate the general 

 character of the food of this fish, together with some of the details. It also illustrates 

 the mechanism by which the food is obtained; and leads finally to some understand- 

 ing of the organisms of these inshore localities as bearing upon the life-history of the 

 menhaden directly, both as to the time and place of spawning, and as furnishing an 

 appropriate food supply for both adult and young fry — within much protected areas. 



The food of the menhaden is to be found in the unicellular organisms, both veg- 

 etal and animal, which swarm in all surface waters, together with the smaller Crus- 

 tacea and other free-swimming forms which there congregate, and there are reasons 

 why the regions here considered — the brackish, even almost fresh, waters of broad 

 shallow estuaries and inlets, connecting with the sea only by narrow channels — are 

 very important as affecting the kind and abundance of the various microscopic organ- 

 isms used by this fish as food. It is here that the fresh- water streams are first brought 

 into the ocean, bringing with them a new source of the inorganic materials — in solu- 

 tions drained from large land areas — which are so essential to the growth of vegetal 

 cells and animal tissues. By these streams also are brought a wealth of fresh- water 

 microorganisms of the most important nature, especially the Protophyta, which thus 

 lend an additional source of food material to the individuals already upon the ground, 

 or find in them new victims for their own sustenance. Salt-water organisms are also 

 brought in with each tide, giving a new intensity to the struggle; it is the common 



Note. — The paper read by Mr. Peck at the Fisheries Congress was a brief of a report then under 



preparation by him. The full report, having since been completed, is presented here in lieu of the 



abstract. 



113 



F. C. B. 1893—8 



