survey of the Brown Pelican breeding 

 places, and secured exact data as to 

 what this particular pelican ate, when 

 fish of all kinds were most plentiful 

 in the Gulf waters. 



"The Louisiana coast from Pearl 

 River to the Sabine was explored 

 and pelicans and their food collected 

 and sent to Washington, D. C. for 

 identification by the United States 

 Bureau of Fisheries. The result of 

 the examination of many hundreds of 

 stomachs showed that 97 per cent of 

 the fish were menhaden or 'gulf 

 sardines', and 3 per cent were silver- 

 sides - not a single food fish used by 

 man was found!" 



Lund (1936) reported that about 85 

 percent of the dead fish reported on the 

 south Texas coast in the sumnner of 

 1935 were menhaden. Facts reported 

 by Lund and others verbally to the 

 senior author indicate, with little doubt, 

 that this mortality was the result of a 

 "red tide". 



Gunter {1941a) noted that, although 

 menhaden were listed as a common 

 bay fish in previous papers, only three 

 were observed killed by the hard cold 

 ■wave of January 1940 on the Texas 

 coast. These were seen in Copano Bay 

 and were listed as B. patTOnuS- The 

 specimens could have been B. gunteTi. 



Gunter (1945) found no menhaden 

 in the stomachs of 23 7 redfish 

 (SciaenopS ocellata) examined. He found 

 three Brevoortia in the stomachs of 

 153 Cynoscion nehulosus. 



Gunter, Davis, Williams and Smith 

 (1948) recorded ten B. /JOfronMS killed 

 by the red tide along 20 yards of Fort 

 Myers beach, among 208 other fishes. 

 The species could have been B. Smithi. 



Reid (1955a) found that 89 percent 

 of "white trout" (Cynoscionaretmrius) 

 stomachs contained fish "and menhaden 

 constituted the greatest part of this 

 item." He indicated that the menhaden 

 soon grow too large to be taken by 

 "trout". He said menhaden were also 

 preyed upon to a lesser extent by the 

 croaker, two nnarine catfishes, the ten- 



pounder, ElopS saurus, and the lizard- 

 fish, Synodus foetens. It was concluded 

 that predation on young fish, especially 

 menhaden, is severe. Reid (1955b) also 

 pointed out that "birds of the area also 

 exact a toll on these fish." 



Parasites and Diseases 



Pearse ( 1 952a) described the para- 

 sitic copepod, Caligiis ventrosetus , from 

 the gills of B. gunteri at Port Aransas, 



Texas. He also listed Lemanthropus 

 brevoortiae from B. patronus at the 

 same locality. Pearse (1952b) recorded 

 Lemanthropus brevoortiae from the 

 gills of B. patronus in Florida. Causey 

 (1953) reported Lernaeenicus radiatus 

 from B. 

 Louisiana. 



'tyrannus" at Grand Isle, 



Causey (1955) reported the para- 

 sitic copepods, Lemanthropus brevo- 

 ortiae and L. radiatus from B. patronus 

 at Pascagoula, Mississippi. Hargis 

 (1955) listed the monogenetic trema- 

 tode, Mazocraeoides georgei, from the 

 gills of B. patronus at Alligator Harbor, 

 Florida, as a new host record. Koratha 

 (I955) described a new monogenetic 

 trematode, Diclidophora lintoni, from 

 the gills of B. gunteri taken at Port 

 Aransas, Texas. 



Hargis (1957) listed the following 

 monogenetic trematodes (Family Ma- 

 zocraeidae) as parasitic on Brevoortia 

 patronus: Clupeocotyle brevoortia, C. 

 megaconfibula, Kuhnia brevoortia and 

 Mazocraeoides georgei . 



Sparks (1958) listed the digenetic 

 tr emai.tod.&. Par ahemiurus merus.irom 



the gills of B. patronus a.s a new host 

 record. 



Menhaden Fishery Investigations 



Miles and Simmons (1950) gave a 

 review of the menhaden industry and 

 fishery. They also summarized certain 

 biological information collected by a 

 series of workers at the Marine Lab- 

 oratory of the Texas Game and Fish 

 Commission and published a series of 

 mimeographed reports by Breuer, 



22 



