158 S ALMONIDES. 



ges arising from the improvements of their solita 

 ry haunts. As animals recede before the inroads 

 of civil life, so do the fishes, and no human laws 

 can restrain them. 



Menhaden, Bony-Fish, Hard-Head, Mars- 

 banker, or Pauhagen, — Clwpea Menhaden. 

 All these mean the same fish. Perhaps the best 

 history of the menhaden, is that by Latrobe, in 

 the fifth volume of the Philadelphia Transactions. 

 The great whale, Balama Mysticetus make them 

 a favorite food. 



THE MENHADE1T. 



Dr Mitchell was informed' by whalemen, that 

 when this monster gets into a shoal of menhaden, 

 his under jaw being spread, he gathers in several 

 hogsheads at a mouthful, which can only enter the 

 small swallow of the whale, one by one. In the 

 various bays and inlets of Massachusetts, such vast 

 shoals of the menhaden are taken, that besides be- 

 ing smoked for food, far greater numbers are dis- 

 tributed over the fields for manure. 



