564 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
Confining our attention now to the Atlantic coast, let us examine the 
components of the present-day catch of fish. 
The largest single item in the catch is menhaden. Of the total catch 
(1,638,000,000 pounds), 770,000,000 pounds were of this species: Referring 
to Figure 4, we see that the poundage of menhaden was greater than that 
of all other fish combined and more than twice that of all shellfish. This 
great predominance of menhaden is not often appreciated, probably because 
this fish has not been used for food and thus is considered a “poor relation ” 
among the fishes. But, despite our low esteem of this fish, it must certainly 
be a tremendous factor in the ecology of the sea. In fact, the relative amount 
in the catch probably underrates it as compared with other fish. For men- 
haden the fishermen receive only one-half cent a pound. For other fish the 
average price is 4 cents. If the fishermen were to get 4 cents a pound for 
menhaden, it would loom still larger in the catch. 
Cod and haddock rank next in quantity to menhaden, each yielding over 
90,000,000 pounds annually. Herring is fourth in quantity, with over 60,000,000 
MILLIONS OF POUNDS 

1920 192 
Fic. 3.—Yield of the fisheries of the various waters of the United States 
pounds. The catches of mullet, alewives, squeteagues, and flounders are 
nearly equal—close to 40,000,000 pounds annually. Others follow, in order of 
quantity, as shown in Figure 5. It is interesting to note that two of our most 
esteemed fishes—halibut and bluefish—are near the bottom. 
In order to get a group picture of the changes occurring in our fisheries I 
have compiled the statistics of several branches of the fisheries, grouping sepa- 
rately the fresh-water, anadromous, catadromous, shore, demersal, and pelagic 
fishes. Some explanation of these groupings may be in order. The fresh-water 
fishes include all those that nominally spend their lifetime in the rivers and are 
largely caught there by commercial fishermen, though they may be taken 
occasionally in brackish water. Some of the important species in this group 
are suckers, carp, catfish, sunfish, yellow perch, black bass, pike, and buffalo- 
fish. The statistics of these may not be complete, for the canvasses include the 
coastal streams only so far as the commercial fishery is relatively important. 
Among the anadromous fishes are the shads, alewives, striped bass, white 
perch, smelt, salmon, and sturgeon. The common eel comprises the catadromous 

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