HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 37 



those waters; and a similar statement is made by Capt. D. P. Kane, of 

 the Matagorda light-station, Texas, who is a native of Maine, and has 

 been engaged in pogyfishiug in that State. He has for the past eight 

 years been engaged on the coast from Florida to Mexico, and has never 

 seen menhaden or heard of their being caught south of Cape Hatteras, 

 with one exception. 



Capt. WilliRui Nichols, pilot, residing in Saluria, Tex., informed Cap- 

 tain Kane that in September, 1872, great quantities of pogies drifted 

 upon the beach at Saluria, and that the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and 

 Matagorda Bay were full of them. Capt. AYilliam E. Spicer, of Noank, 

 Conn., is positive that he has encountered schools of these fish while 

 seining for the Mobile market off Tampa, Fla. 



These statements probably refer to the Gulf menhaden, recently dis- 

 covered at various points in the northern Gulf of Mexico, and easily dis- 

 tinguished from the northern species. 



Range of other sjjecies. ' 



GO. On the coasts of Brazil and at Montevideo occurs a geographical 

 race of our northern species, the Brcvoortia tijranims, aurea, while still 

 farther south, in the waters of Buenos Ayres, is another species, Bre- 

 voortia pectinata. The latter was first taken by Charles Darwin, on his 

 memorable voyage around the world, in a net on a sand-bank at Bahia 

 Blanca (latitude 39° S). Very probably the species is abundant along 

 the coasts of the Argentine Eepublic, in the broad mouth of the Kio de 

 la Plata, and from the analogy of our species, well up the southern coasts 

 of Brazil, perhaps to Eio Janeiro. It is not unlikely that the eastern 

 coast of South America is as abundantly supplied as our own with these 

 most valuable fishes. Valenciennes states that the Portuguese of South 

 America call the Brevoortia aurea by the name Savega. 



Again, on the coasts of West Africa occurs a species, Brevoortia dorsaUs, 

 closely resembling the menhaden. An old fisherman in Maine told me 

 that he had seen the menhaden in immense quantities on the western 

 coast of Africa, where the negroes spear them and eat them. 



Illustrations and descriptions of all the known American species are 

 given elsewhere in this memoir. 



Alleged occurrence on the Pacific coast. 



CI. The Hon. S. L. Goodale, of Saco, Me., writing under date October 

 25, 1877, states that some menhaden fishermen of Bristol, Me., have 

 recently sent one of their number to prospect for them on the Pacific 

 coast, and that his reports were so favorable that several of them with 

 their families had left a few Aveeks previously for Washington Territory, 

 where they were informed that " pogies " were abundant. If this report 

 be true, it is quite certain that the explorers are doomed to disappoint- 

 ment. Xo fish resembling the menhaden occurs in the Pacific Ocean. 



