HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 13 



The derivation of this name may be easily traced, it having evidently 

 been transferred by the Dutch colonists from the scad or horse mack- 

 erel, Caranx trachurus (Linn.) Lacepede, a fish which annually visits the 

 shores of Northern Europe in immense schools, swimming at the sur- 

 face in much the same manner as our Brevoortia^ and which is known to 

 the Hollanders as the Marsbanlcer,* 



In the Museum Ichthyologicum of Gronow,t published in 1754, the 

 name Marsbanlcer is used in speaking of a scombroid fish, frequently 

 tukeu with the herring, probably the same below referred to4 



The name is variously spelled •' mossbuuker," " mossbonker," " mass- 

 banker," " mousebunker," " marshbunker," " marshbanker,"and " morse- 

 bonker," and is also familiarly shortened into " bunker," a name in com- 

 mon use at the eastern end of Long Island, 



2G. The name " alewife " was given by the Virginia colonists to this 

 species from its resemblance to the allied species known by that name 

 in England. This name is preoccupied by the Pomolobus pseudoharengiis^ 

 and should never be applied to Brevoortia. 



27. The presence of a parasitic crustacean [CyviotJioa prcegustator) in 

 the mouth of Brevoortia, when found in southern waters, explains the 

 name " bug-fish " prevalent in Delaware and Cheaspeake Bays, the 

 Potomac and Eappahaunock Kivers, and the inlets of North Carolina, 

 with its local variations of "bug-head" and "buggy-head."§ " Yellow- 

 land. The wind was liigli, the elements in an uproar, and no Charon could be found 

 to ferry the adventurous sounder of brass across the water. For a short time he vapored 

 like an impatient ghost upon the brink and then, bethinking himself of the urgency 

 of his errand, took a hearty embrace of his stone bottle, swore most valorously that he 

 would swim across in spite of the devil (Spyt den Duyvel), and daringly plunged into 

 the chasm. * * * An old Dutch burgher, famed for his veracity, and who had been 

 a witness of the fact, related to them * * * that he saw the duyvel, in the shape 

 of a huge moss-bonker, seize the sturdy Antony by the leg and drag him beneath the 

 waves. * * » Nobody ever attempts to swim across the creek after dark, and as to 

 tlie moss-bonkers, they are held in such abhorrence that no good Dutchman will ad- 

 mit them to his table who loves good fish and hates the devil." 



* See Schlegel, Die Dieren van Nederland, Yisschen, p. 4. 



t Museum | Ichthyologicum, | siatens | Piscium | indigenorum & quorundam exoti- 

 corum, I qui in | Museo | Lawrentii Theodori | Gronovii,.J, U.D. | adservantur, descrij)- 

 tiones | ordine systematico. | Accedunt | nonnullorum cxoticorum Piscium icones ajri 

 incisae. | « > » # « | (Cut) | Lugduni Batavorum, | Apud Theodorum Haak, | 

 MDCCLIV. I folio, 10 preliminary pages, pp. 70. 



t i^O. Scomber linea laterali aculeata, pinna, ani ossiculorum triginta, Arted. Gen.25,n. 

 3, Synon. p. 50, n. 3. 



Scomber linea laterali curva, tabellis os- Belgis Marshanker Frequentissime in 

 Reis loricata, Gronov. act. ups. 1742, p. 83, Mari Septentrionale cum Clupeisp. 5, n. 4, 

 ibicjue defer. Trachurus, Bossuet, epigr. i>. descriptis capitur. 



74, Bellon. Aqiiat. p. 180, Dale. Hist, of Op. cit. p. 34. 



Harw., p. 131, n. 5. 



$ Captain Atwood states in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 X, HCm, p. 67, that the half-grown menhaden are called "bug-fish" by the Virginia 

 negroes, because they believe them to have been produced from insects, since they 

 never find spawn in them there. 



