pilot, Capt. Wm. Nichols, who said 

 that the waters of Matagorda Bay and 

 the Gulf were full of them and great 

 quantities of menhaden "drifted upon 

 the beach at Saluria" (Texas) in 1872. 

 Whether the fish were alive or dead at 

 the time they stranded is not clear from 

 the context. In the meantime Goode 



(1878) described Brevoortia patrorms , 



based upon specimens from Brazos 

 Santiago, Texas, and the mouth of the 

 Rio Grande. Brazos Santiago remains 

 the southernmost record for B.patrOTlUS 

 in the western Gulf. 



Jordan and Gilbert (1883) listed 

 the menhaden from Pensacola and Gal- 

 veston. Evermann and Kendall (1894) 

 reviewed previous Texas literature and 

 noted one young specimen from Gal ves - 

 ton. Weymouth (1911) listed ten adults 

 and a "considerable number" of young, 

 the latter being doubtfully referred to 

 Brevoortia tyrannus patronus Goode . 

 Most of the collection was made at 

 Calcasieu Pass, Louisiana, which lies 

 in the range of B. gunteri, and Wey- 

 mouth's doubts may have been well 

 founded. Precise dates of collection 

 were not given, and they were probably 

 not known to Weymouth. The fishes 

 were taken by Milo Spaulding during 

 1906. 



Fowler (1931) said that a fishing 

 vessel at Port Isabel, Texas, had a 

 small load of B, patronus in August. 



Gowanloch (1932. 1933), writing 

 about the fishes of Louisiana, noted the 

 abundance 9f menhaden and said that it 

 "is not commercially fished along the 

 Gulf Coast." 



In 1932 Gunter began counting the 

 fishes taken by the vessel "Black 

 Mallard" in Louisiana. Five otter- 

 trawl hauls were made monthly from 

 the head of Barataria Bay, to 5 miles 

 offshore from Barataria Pass in the 

 open Gulf. Counts were made from 

 January 193 2 to June 1933; John C. 

 Pearson continued thenn until Decem- 

 ber 1933. The first results were pre- 

 sented in a paper on destruction of 

 fishes by shrimp trawls (Gunter, 1936). 

 The tables were unwisely divided into 

 commercial and noncommercial fishes 

 and table 7 is reworked from tables la, 

 lb, Ila and lib of that paper. Menhaden 

 formed 5.8 percent of the 80,093 fishes 

 taken in the bay during both years and 

 2.4 percent of the 46,518 fishes taken 

 in the shallow Gulf. Most of the bay 

 menhaden were small, and probably 

 were able to escape the trawl when 

 they moved out into the Gulf as larger 

 fish. 



Table 7. — Numbers of fishes taken in trawls on the Louisiana coast, 1932-33 



[As reported by Gunter (1936)] 



In Bay 



In Gulf 



Total 



Edible fishes: 



1932 



1933 



Nonedible fishes: 

 Menhaden: 



1932 



1933 



Other nonedible fishes: 



1932 



1933 



Total nonedible fishes: 



1932 



1933 



17,309 

 2^,917 



26,264 



11,603 



'^3,573 

 36,529 



19 



