previous years. This resulted primarily from 

 the near complete absence of age-0 fish, but 

 also from the decrease in numbers of age-1 

 fish, even though this age group dominated the 

 summer fishery in the South Atlantic, Chesa- 

 peake Bay, and Middle Atlantic Areas. The 

 second change was the shift to smaller size 

 classes in the Middle Atlantic and North 

 Atlantic Areas. The shift in the Middle Atlantic 

 Area resulted from the dominance of age-1, 

 rather than age-2, fish, as in previous years; 

 and in the North Atlantic Area, from the 



greater numbers of age-1 fish as compared 

 with previous years. 



All of the features noted in the length- 

 frequency distributions of previous years were 

 present in the 1959 data. These have been 

 discussed in other reports in this series (June 

 and Reintjes, 1959, 1960; June 1961; June and 

 Nicholson, 1964). 



The length-frequency distributions of males 

 and females are shown in figure 5. As in 



TABLE 5. --Calculated number of Atlantic menhaden (In millions) at each age in purse seine 



catches, by area and season, 1955-59 



11 



