UISTORY OP THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 455 



abundance for a single season; Lenco, no cause is assignable for a de- 

 crease when none is known. 



10. No gill or haul seines frighten them if they are out of sight ; but 

 when sunning on the surface, any noise close by sends the s(;hool out 

 of sight in an instant, to reappear not far off ; if the object was to catch 

 them, this is the most favorable time, and the purse-net is most likely to 

 accomplish it. 



11. Inshore on the young flood to feed, and out to deep water again 

 w hen the ebb is not lower than four feet. 



12. Sandy bottom predominates on this coast, and there is where most 

 fish are found, although they are caught in numbers where the bottom 

 is muddy. Some few fish are found considerable distances up the creeks 

 at high water. 



13. Most fish are found in 10 to 15 feet of water, or deeper; they are 

 also caught in large numbers in water as shallow as 6 feet; sometimes 

 when it is not deeper than 4 feet. 



14. Not known, but am inclined to think they prefer warm water un- 

 til arriving at full size. 



15. Medium and small fish are found together, not probably in the 

 same schools, but close enough together for the seine to catch fish rang- 

 ing in size from 9 inches down to 3 inches. 



16. Yes; immense quantities of them from about the 10th September 

 to 1st October, in size from 3 inches up, and smaller ones, probably, but 

 1 have not seen any. 



17. Toward the latter part of September they gradually disappear. 



18. Run out to the main bay-channel ; beyond that I have no knowl- 

 edge. 



19. It is impossible for me to say with certainty, but I think near the 

 Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean, from the fact that this fish appears 

 so partial to warm water. 



20. I have not the least doubt that their food is something similar to 

 that of shad, such as minute animal cula found in muddy bottoms ; their 

 digestion is evidently very rapid, as the contents of the stomach bear a 

 nearer resemblance to black mud than to anything else. 



21. But for what took place about the 7th of last November on this 

 coast I should hesitate to give any opinion in reply to this query. After 

 the last menhaden had disappeared from these waters, and as late as the 

 7th November, all at once from Cape May to Cape Henlopen, and up the 

 bay 18 miles, to and above this station, the water was crowded with the 

 largest size of this fish ever seen by any person on the coast, the largest 

 being quite as big as medium-sized shad, extremely fat, and full three- 

 fourths of them pregnant with large and nearly matured roe; the shores 

 of the bay from Lewes up this far were lined with dead fish, bitten to 

 death by bluefish. Some of the latter weighed 25 pounds. Numbers of 

 dead fish were without tails, and all were more or less mutilated by the 

 teeth of the bluefish, or snapping mackerel as it is called at Cape May. 



