BIOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY 103 



The relationship of the type of food to the oil production of menhaden has 

 received no attention from scientists. It is a fact recognized by all fish curers 

 and herring fishermen that the food of the herring directly affects the quality 

 and quantity of the oil. If the herring has been feeding heavily on copepods 

 and euphausiids (tiny crustaceans), they will be found in prime condition for 

 curing and salting. If, on the other hand, the diet has consisted chiefly of 

 pteropods (small mollusks), the fish is watery and the curing poor. Nor- 

 wegian fishermen recognize this fact and often "pen" the fish until they are 

 cleansed (Kyle, 1926). The quality, as well as the quantity, of the food of 

 the menhaden may readily account for poor oil yield during a season and 

 period where in previous years it was good. 



The food of the small menhaden appears to be identical in character with 

 that of the adult, although the very small menhaden possesses teeth (Hilde- 

 brand, 1948), the significance of which is not known. 



ENEMIES 



Menhaden is the prey to virtually all of those carnivorous fishes which in- 

 habit the same waters as the menhaden. In New England it is eaten by the 

 whiting, codfish, pollock, dogfish, shark, tuna, whale, and even the flounder. 

 In the more southern waters it is eaten by the pompano, cavally, bonito, and 

 bayonet-fish. Along the entire coast wherever they are found in common with 

 menhaden, the striped bass, swordfish, weakfish, or sea trout, and dolphin 

 destroy and consume them. They are attacked and eaten in rivers, par- 

 ticularly southern rivers, by gar-fish and catfish. 



Of the enemies, the whales, dolphin, shark, tuna, bluefish, and weakfish 

 are the most destructive. As many as one hundred individuals have been 

 taken from the stomach of one large shark, and Dr. Goode says that the 

 whales and dolphins consume them by the hogshead. From the air, predatory 

 sea birds attack the schools, and it is not unusual to see gulls riding the 

 schools and enjoying a feast. 



The quantities in which they are eaten or destroyed by their natural 

 enemies is prodigious. Dr. Goode estimates that the number of menhaden 

 annually destroyed by natural enemies amounts to a million million of mil- 

 lions, or put differently, 1,000 times the number taken by man in 1948, let us 

 say, when the greatest capture on record was made. 



Of all the enemies, bluefish are the worst and the most savage foe. Not 

 only do they devour great numbers but after gorging themselves they con- 

 tinue to kill and destroy, often driving menhaden into the surf, by which they 

 are thrown on the beach in windrows, sometimes to a depth of two feet or 

 more, where their decaying bodies foul the shore and air for weeks. On 

 occasions when this stranding of menhaden has occurred near inhabited 

 beaches or towns, it has been necessary to have them removed as a health 



