lilSTOEY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 107 



ravenously tlirougli the closely crowded schools, cutting and tearing 

 the living tish as they go, and leaving in their wake the mangled frag- 

 ments. Traces of the carnage remain for weeks in the great "slicks" 

 of oil so commonly seen on smooth water during the summer season. 



Menhaden driven ashore. 



14G. The terrified fish ily in every direction, and are often driven 

 ashore in great numbers. Mr. Church states that the bluefish some- 

 times come into Massachusetts and Narragansett Bays in such force as 

 to completely exterminate the menhaden, driving them ashore in great 

 numbers. 



JMr. James H. Bell; keeper of Mispillion Eiver Light, Delaware Bay, 

 writes that about November 7, 1874, the shores of the bay from Lewes 

 \\{) to Mispillion liiver were lined with dead fish, bitten to death by the 

 bluefish, or snapping mackerel as it is there called. Many of the dead 

 fish were without tails, and all were more or less mutilated. Many 

 other cases may be mentioned where the fish were thus floated ashore, 

 but whether their death is to be traced to the persecutions of the blue- 

 fish or to some epidemic prevailing at the time can never be certainly 

 known. 



Mr. David F. Loring, keeper of Highland Light, Truro, Mass., has 

 seen hundreds of barrels of them cumbering the shore in the western 

 part of Proviucetown Harbor, driven up by bluefish, and has also seen 

 them thrown ashore in numbers at the mouth of the Merrimac River. 



About 1850 they were thrown np on the coast of Maine in such quan- 

 tities that the i)eople in the vicinity were obliged to bury them as a sani- 

 tary measure. 



Capt. Joseph Hardy second, light-house keeper at Chatham, Mass., 

 states that in 1832 they drifted ashore on the southeastern point of Cape 

 Cod in such numbers that the inhabitants were summoned to bury them 

 in pits, for fear of a pestilence, and that the same thing occurred a few 

 years later. 



Mr. B. Lillingston, of Stratford, states that large numbers are sometimes 

 washed up along the coast of Connecticut in September and October. 

 Mr. F. Lillingston, of the same place, has seen thousands dead upon the 

 shore, some with "a reddish blotched appearance, others eaten as if by 

 cancer." According to Mr. Albert Morris, they floated ashore by tons 

 at Somers Point, JSew Jersey, in October, 1873. 



Mr. Isaac D. Eobbins, keeper of Hog Island light station, Maryland, 

 states that in August, 1852, he saw a great many dead ones, about two 

 inches in length, in Swangut Creek, on the Eastern Shore, near the line 

 between ^Maryland and Virginia. He attributes their death to the efl'ects 

 of the warm weather. 



According to Mr. Wallace R. Jennett, they have sometimes drifted 

 ashore on Cape Hatteras in such abundance that the stench of the de- 

 composing mass was almost unendurable. 



