hemorrhages caused by gas emboli in 

 capillaries of the gills, eyes and optic 

 lobes of the brain. Bacteria could not 

 be found and the fish entrails were 

 not harmful to cats. Whether the gas 

 emboli were the terminal cause of 

 death or were only an associated con- 

 dition could not be determined. In any 

 case, fish not in distress did not have 

 gas emboli. The authors noted that all 

 mortalities occurred in areas with 

 "markedly varying salinities" and with 

 "organic pollution to a degree where 

 shellfishing is prohibited". 



Parasites and Diseases 



Viral and bacterial diseases are 

 unknown in menhaden, and there is no 

 evidence that they are affected by any 

 fatal disease of epidemic proportions. 

 On the other hand menhaden are char- 

 acteristically host to a number of worm 

 and crustacean parasites, which may 

 cause debility but not death. 



The following parasites of the 

 Atlantic menhaden were listed by West- 

 man and Nigrelli (1955): 



Olencira praegustator, a parasitic 



isopod fronri the mouth, was not listed 

 by Westman and Nigrelli, but is very 

 common in fish in the south (Ellison, 

 1951). O. praegustator is so charac- 

 teristic that its description by Latrobe, 

 along with the original description of 

 B. t yr annus , was one fact indicating the 

 identity of Latrobe's fish, according to 

 Hildebrand (1948). 



Menhaden Fishery Investigations 



Goode (1879) wrote of the conflicts 

 between the menhaden fishery and other 

 fisheries. Smith (1896) reported the 

 first examination of other fishes 

 taken with menhaden. Among almost 

 28,000,000 menhaden, the other fishes 

 constituted 0.0Z8 percent, exclusive of 

 alewives. Including alewives, the figure 



14 



