HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 93 



18. — Abundance in tde future. 

 The prohahility of future decrease. 



118. There is uo evidence of a decrease in the abundance of menhaden 

 during a period of fifteen or more years of fisheries conducted on an im- 

 mense scale. It seems, therefore, that no one can reasonably predict a 

 decrease in the future. The movements of marine fishes are capricious 

 in the extreme. The only cases in which the fisheries have been clearly 

 shown to exercise a pernicious effect is where the spawning fish are taken 

 in great quantities. It has been clearly determined that the menhaden 

 are never captured upon their spawning-beds. 



F.— FOOD. 



19. — Food of the menha.den. 



The opinions of fishermen. 



119. Fishermen generally say that the menhaden feed on ''brit" and 

 " seed," " red seed," " cayenne," or " bony-fish feed." These are sailors' 

 names for small floating animals of any kind, such as the minute Crus- 

 tacea, mostly entomostracans {ostracoda and copcopoda), which swarm 

 the surface of the North Atlantic and are the favorite food of mackerel, 

 herring, and many smaller species. They describe this food as " some- 

 thing of a red or green color and about the size of hay-seed," and very 

 naturally suppose the menhaden to be feeding upon it when they are 

 swimming with their heads at the surface. Others think that they "live 

 by suction," meaning that they feed by drawing through the mouth 

 water containing particles of organic matter. The sturgeons, pipe-fish, 

 and cyprinidse, all witli toothless mouths, are supposed to have this 

 habit. Others say that they feed upon the jelly-fishes {acaiephce)^* upon 

 the "mossy substance" which clings to the eel-grass {Zostera marina), 

 and upon the " scum " or " mucus" which floats on the surface. Perhaps 

 all are right, for most fishes relish changes of diet. At Greenport, N. Y., 

 according to Mr. W. S. Havens, the slimy coating of the eelgrass (which 

 is composed of small algse, Spyridia filamentosa, with various species of 

 Polysiphonia and Ceramium, &c., ctten clogged with a soft, slimy de- 

 posit) is known as "bunker-feed." 



Peculiar movements of the menhaden. 



120. Captain Loring has seen the menhaden in Provincetown Harbor 

 in groups of from 20 to 500 gathered among the eel grass in shoal water, 

 swimming around and around in circles. He supposed them to be spawn- 

 ing, but it seems quite probable that they were feeding. Mr. Hance 

 Lawsou states that in Chesapeake Bay the schools break up into small 



* Acalephae do not have the appearauce of being nutritious food, but the fattest hoga 

 I have seeu in Florida are those at Mayport, which greedily devour a large species of 

 discophore which is cast on the beach in great quantities. 



