HISTORY OP HIE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 13 



The derivatiou of this uaine may be easily traced, it having evidently 

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

 erel, Caranx irachuriis (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 

 .taken with the herring, probabl^'^ the same below referred to.| 



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. 



26. 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 Pomolohus pseudoharengus^ 

 and should never be applied to Brevoortia. 



27. The presence of a parasitic crustacean {Cymothoa prwgustator) in 

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

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

 Potomac and Rai^pahannock Rivers, and the inlets of North Carolina, 

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

 land. The wind was high, 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 ux-gency 

 of his erraud, 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 jtlunged into 

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

 a witness of the fact, related to them * * * tliat 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 

 the 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 Nederlaud, Visscheu, p. 4. 



t Museum | Ichthyologicum, | sistens | Piscium | indigenorum «& quorundam esoti- 

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

 tiones | ordine systematico. | Accedunt | nonnullorum oxoticorum Piscium icones seri 

 incisae. | ***** | (Cut) | Lugduni Batavorum, | Apud Theodorum Haak, | 

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



X 80. Scomber linea lateral! aculeata, j)iEua, ani ossiculorum triginta, Arted. Gen. 25, n. 

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



Scomber linea laterali curva, tabellis OS- Belgis Marsbanlier Frequentissime iu 

 seis loricata, Gronov. act. vps. 1742, p. 83, Marl Septentrionale cum Clupeisp.5, n. 4, 

 ibique defer. Trachurus, Bossuet, epigr. p. descriptis capitur. 



74, Bellon. Aquat. 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, 

 s, 1865, 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. 



