98 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



females cau be readily distiuguished by the distension of the abdomen ; 

 both sexes are so ripe that eggs and milt can be easily pressed from 

 them. In Chesapeake Bay, in early spring, just after the advent of the 

 adult fish, great schools of the young are seen, thought to be one and a 

 half or two inches long. These little ones huddle together in dense 

 schools, preyed upon by shovel-nosed sharks and other enemies. They 

 are bound, so far as can be seen, in no particular direction, and are not 

 supposed to come further north, but to pass the summer there and leave 

 in the fall greatly increased in size. The color of these young fish, when 

 seen in mass, is black, instead of red, which is the color of a school of 

 adults when seen beneath the surface. These statements are not au- 

 thenticated by the name of the observer, and must be received with 

 caution. 



21. — Studies of the young fish. 



Tlie young fish in Southern New England. 



131. Young fish from four to six inches long make their appearance 

 in vast numbers a few weeks after the arrival of the adult fish. So 

 extensive are the schools that experienced fishermen are sometimes de- 

 ceived, mistaking them for schools of large fish, and make every prepa- 

 ration for setting their nets. These little fish play up into the shallow 

 coves and the brackish water at the mouths of rivers and become an 

 easy prey to small bluefish, eels, flatfish, and other small fishes. 



Young menhaden seldom round Cape Cod, though they are not uncom- 

 mon in Provincetown Harbor in September, where the fishermen catch 

 them in dip-nets for bait. They have never been seen on the coast of Maine. 

 Mr. Dodge states that they are occasionally seen in coves near Marble- 

 head, Mass., and Mr. Babson has seen schools of half-grown fish at rare 

 intervals about Cape Ann. In the museum of the Peabody Academy 

 of Sciences, at Salem, is a bottle containing specimens about three inches 

 long taken in Salem Harbor. South of Cape Cod, as far as Cape Hat- 

 teras, they swarm in the waters in late summer and autumn, and in the 

 Saint John's River, Florida, the creeks and coves are alive with them 

 in summer and early autumn. In the harbor of Beaufort, S. C, they 

 are said to occur in December. 



These schools of small fish, some of them little over an inch in length, 

 suddenly make their appearance in the bays of the Vineyard and Fish- 

 er's Island Sounds about the middle of August. It may be regarded as 

 certain that they are not hatched from the eggs in these localities, be- 

 cause for several seasons the ground has been thoroughly explored daily 

 for two months before the appearance of these fish without finding a 

 trace of fish of smaller size. 



Locomotive potcers of the young menhaden. 



132. It has been suggested that young menhaden, less than two inches 

 in length, cannot be thought to have traveled from the Virginia coast, a 



