HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 105 



Mitchill remarks : " The whalemen say he is the favorite food of the 

 great bone-whale or Balosna mysticetus. This creature, opening his 

 mouth amid a school of menhaden, receives into its cavity the amount 

 of some hogsheads of menhaden at a gulp. These pass one by one 

 head foremost down his narrow gullet j and eyewitnesses have assured 

 me that on cutting up whales after death great quantities of menhaden 

 had been discovered thus regularly disposed in the stomach and intes- 

 tines."* 



I have seen fin-back whales apparently feeding in this way at the 

 eastern end of Long Island Sound. Schools of dolpliins and porpoises 

 follow the menhaden, consuming them in immense numbers, and seals 

 are said to be among their persecutors. 



Mr. Dudley informs me that in 1877 the fish left the sound on the 12th 

 of October; on the 19th enormous quantities were driveo back by a 

 school of 30 or 40 whales which the fishermen saw playing off shore. 



Sharks. 



143. Sharks prey largely upon the menhaden. Capt. B. H. Sisson 

 has seen 100 taken from the stomach of one shark. Mr. D. T. Church 

 gives an account of the destruction of a school off Seaconnet, R. I. 

 '' They were lying," he writes, " apparently undisturbed, when a school 

 of sharks appeared among them. The havoc was fearful. One gang 

 of fishermen had their seine in the water at the time, and they com- 

 pletely destroyed it ; they were so ugly that they would seize the end 

 of an oar as if it were a fish." 



Mr. E. E. Taylor, of Newport, R. I., gives an amusing account of the 

 habits of the thresher shark [Alopias vulpes) : " The heaviest shark we 

 have around here is the thresher shark ; they feed on menhaden. I saw 

 a thresher shark kill with his tail, which was nearly eight feet long, half 

 a bushel of menhaden at one blow, and then he picked them up off the 

 water. They come up tail first, and give about two slams, and it is 

 "good-by, John,' to about half a bushel of menhaden."t This story 

 should be taken cum grano salis, but still may contain a few grains of 

 truth. 



The horned dog-fish {Squalus americanus) and the smooth dog-fish 

 {Mustelus Icevis), the smallest representatives in our waters of the shark 

 family, doubtless do more injury than their larger brethren by reason 

 of their great abundance. The former are so voracious that when they 

 make their appearance all other fishes are driven away. When the 

 dog-fish "strike on," an experienced fisherman always pulls in his lines 

 or his nets and abandons his work. 



Other fishes. 



144. All the large carnivorous fishes prey on the menhaden. The 

 horse-mackerel or tunny {Orcynus thynnus) is one of the most destruc- 



* Trans. N. Y. Lit. and Phil. Soc, 1, 1815, 453. 



t Report of Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries, 1871-'72, p. 28. 



