124 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



more than they eat. Besides the toll taken by these natural enemies, menhaden, 

 like herring, often strand in myriads in shoal water either in their attempt to escape 

 their enemies or for other reasons, to perish and pollute the air for weeks with the 

 stench of their decaying carcasses. 



Habits. — The menhaden, like the herring, almost invariably travels in schools 

 of thousands of individuals, swimming closely side by side and tier above tier when, 

 as Goode, et al. (1884, p. 571) so graphically write, "one may see their glittering 

 backs beneath, and the boat seems to be gliding over a floor inlaid with blocks of 

 silver." In calm weather menhaden come to the surface, where fishermen recog- 

 nize the identity of the schools by the ripple they make. W. F. Clapp has described 

 the visible difference between menhaden, herring, and mackerel, as follows: 



Pogies, like herring, make a much more compact disturbance than mackerel, which are 

 often much scattered. Pogies make a much bluer and heavier commotion than herring, which 

 hardly make more of a ripple than does a light breeze passing over the water. Besides, the indi- 

 vidual pogies or herring seldom show themselves, whereas mackerel often break the surface with 

 their heads while swimming. 



It is chiefly on warm, still, sunny days that the menhaden come to the sur- 

 face — sinking in bad weather — and they are said to come up more often on the 

 flood tide than on the ebb. It is also said— but this we can not vouch for— that 

 the fish work inshore on the flood tide and offshore on the ebb. 



Commercial importance. — Commercially the menhaden is one of the most impor- 

 tant of our American fishes— not for the table, but for the manufacture of oil and 

 fertilizer 30 — but, as pointed out above (p. 120), it is only in certain years that a large 

 catch is made north of Cape Cod. The fact that the total value of menhaden 

 products in the year 1912 was $3,690,155 will give an idea of the magnitude of 

 the industry. Practically the entire catch of menhaden is taken with purse seines; 

 they never bite a baited hook. Menhaden are used to a very limited extent for 

 food, but so oily a fish is never likely to become popular. 



THE ANCHOVIES. FAMILY ENGRAULIDID^E 



The anchovies are small herringlike fishes, readily distinguishable from the 

 latter by the fact that the mouth is not only very much larger and gapes much 

 farther back, but is inferior in situation rather than terminal, and is overhung 

 by the upper jaw, which projects like a short piglike snout in some species. Only 

 one anchovy, a straggler from the south, is known to occur in the Gulf of Maine. 



45. Anchovy (Anchovia mitchilli Cuvier and Valenciennes) 



Whitebait 



Jordan and Evermann, 1896-1900, p. 446. 



Description. — The only Gulf of Maine fishes with which one might confuse the 



anchovy are young herring, smelt, or silversides, but it may easily be distinguished 



from the former by the wide mouth, as just noted, by the fact that the upper jaw 



overhangs the lower instead of vice versa, by its much larger eye, by the relative 



* For an account of the status of the menhaden industry in 1912, see Greer (Appendii III, Report, U. S. Commissioner of 

 Fisheries, 1914 (1915), 27 pp.). 



