FISHES OF THE GULF OF MAINE 



117 



least as far north as Boothbay Harbor, that about 

 2,500 barrels were frozen there, though no large 

 schools were reported east of that point. 



The appearance of menhaden in such abundance 

 in the Gulf after so many years' absence prompted 

 the Bureau of Fisheries to send the steamer 

 Halcyon to Massachusetts Bay that August, and 

 her towings indicated the presence of much greater 

 quantities of diatoms than is usual at that season, 

 evidence that the fish found a better pasture in 

 Massachusetts Bay than in any summer since 

 1912. But we hesitate to assert that it was an 

 unusually rich food supply that attracted them 

 past Cape Cod. 



However this may have been, there were not 

 enough menhaden in the Gulf to be of any com- 

 mercial importance from the middle 1920's to the 

 middle 1940's. But so many visited Massachu- 

 setts Bay, in 1946 and 1947 that local boards of 

 health were forced to clean some of the bathing 

 beaches of the fish that drifted ashore from schools 

 netted for lobster bait. There were a good many 

 in Maine waters in 1948 (reported catch 145,000 

 pounds); 36 more still in 1949, when more than 

 5,000,000 pounds were taken there; and about 

 8,000,000 pounds off Gloucester, 37 and when small 

 fry, 2-3% inches (52-95 mm.) were taken in the 

 Sheepscot River, December 5-11, suggesting that 

 some had been reared in the Gulf that year. But 

 this peak of abundance lasted no longer than the 

 peak had in the early 1920's, for there seem to have 

 been far fewer menhaden in Maine waters in 1950 

 than in 1949, as there certainly were in Massachu- 

 setts Bay, where we did not chance to sight a 

 single school, and very few were reported. 



In the years when menhaden come, they appear 

 in Massachusetts Bay about mid-May; off the 

 Maine coast during the last half of May or first 

 part of June. They are most abundant during 

 July, August, and early September, and most of 

 them depart from the coast of Maine by the middle 

 of October, from the Massachusetts Bay region 

 by early November; and it is unusual to find a 

 single menhaden along these shores after the 

 middle of that month, although small ones have 

 been taken in the Sheepscot River as late as the 

 first third of December. 



The universal belief among fishermen, that the 

 seasonal appearances and disappearances of men- 



« Reported by Scattergood, and Trefethen, Copela, 1961, pp. 93-94. 

 • Reported by Scattergood, Trefethen, and Coffin, Copela, 1951, p. 298. 



haden in the Gulf of Maine result from a definite 

 migration from the south around Cape Cod in the 

 spring and a return journey in the autumn, 

 probably is well founded. 



The brevity of the peaks of abundance, the fact 

 that they come at such long intervals, and es- 

 pecially the great local scarcity of young fish, are 

 arguments against the possibility that menhaden 

 are permanent inhabitants of our gulf, though a 

 few fry may be produced there in favorable 

 summers, as happened in 1949 (p. 117). 



Menhaden are warm water fish, and our studies 

 of the temperatures of the Gulf of Maine cor- 

 roborate earlier observations to the effect that 

 they never appear in spring until the coastwise 

 water has warmed to 50° or more, or in abundance 

 until the temperature is several degrees higher, 

 which is in accord with Bean's M experience that 

 menhaden will not survive in an aquarium if the 

 water chills below 50°. No doubt, it is the falling 

 temperature of autumn that forces the menhaden 

 to leave the coasts of northern New England. 



In menhaden years the fish occur all along the 

 shores of the Gulf of Maine from Cape Cod to 

 Penobscot Bay, even to Mount Desert. Their 

 chief centers of abundance always lie in Massa- 

 chusetts Bay within a mile or so of land, partic, 

 ularly off Barnstable and in the mouths of Boston 

 and Salem Harbors; in Casco Bay; and among the 

 islands, thence to Penobscot Bay. But we have 

 never heard of them entering water that is appre- 

 ciable brackish, and in some years they may con- 

 gregate as much as 40 to 50 miles offshore, as 

 happened in 1878, for instance. But we have 

 heard no report of menhaden in the central part of 

 the Gulf or on the off shore Banks. The men- 

 haden are thin when they arrive on our coasts 

 in spring, but they put on fat so rapidly that 

 while the average yield of oil per thousand Gulf of 

 Maine fish was about 12 gallons for the whole 

 summer season of 1894, it rose to 14^ gallons for 

 Boston Harbor fish in August, and to 16 or 18 

 gallons in September. It is generally accepted, 

 furthermore, that fish taken on the New England 

 coast, south or north, always average larger and 

 fatter than those caught farther south. 



Commercial importance. — The menhaden is one 

 of the most important, commercially, of the fishes 

 of the Atlantic Coast of the United States, being 

 used for the manufacture of oil, fertilizer and fish 



» Rept. New York State Mas., 60, Zool. 9, 1903, p. 213. 



