272 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
HABITS OF THE MENHADEN. 
It is true that the menhaden do spawn on the Atlantic coast of the United 
States, but only in limited numbers. Spent fish have been found all along the 
coast from Maine to Florida, but never on their passage north. Such fish have 
been examined in Maine as early as July 15 and on the Atlantic coast of Florida 
as late as December 15. The small fish of that season’s spawning are found 
all along the coast south of Sandy Hook, for the most part during the months 
of August and September. They have rarely been seen north and east of 
Long Island. During the first week in September, 1906, the writer saw sev- 
eral schools of very small menhaden, from 114 inches to 2 inches long, in the 
harbor of Vineyard Haven. Old fishermen, whose observation of those waters 
had extended over long periods, in one case fifty years, stated that they had 
never seen them there before. 
It is unquestionably a fact, although up to this time not demonstrable 
from actual observation and investigation, that the menhaden spawns prin- 
cipally in the warm waters south of the United States, probably in the Car- 
ibbean Sea, and mainly during the months of January, February, and March. 
The writer examined many hundreds of menhaden caught from the 20th of 
November to the roth of December, 1906, between Cape Lookout and George- 
town, S. C., and without a single exception they were fish due to spawn in 
from thirty to sixty days; those fish were moving south at a rate of from 20 to 
50 miles per day. 
Menhaden are also found in large quantities and have been and are being 
taken for commercial purposes in the Gulf of Mexico, but these are slightly dif- 
ferent in appearance and habits from the menhaden found in the Atlantic Ocean, 
being a little heavier in body in proportion to length and less active. It is be- 
lieved that they do not migrate into the Atlantic, but remain about the Gulf 
coasts of the United States and Mexico. 
Many different theories have been advanced and maintained as to the spawn- 
ing habits of the menhaden and also as to their habitat during the winter and 
early spring months; but it is believed by the writer, from a very careful personal 
observation of these fish for the past twenty years and over the entire eastern 
coast of the United States from Maine to Florida, that the statements herein 
made are, as nearly as present knowledge of the subject will justify, correct and 
accurate. This statement, however, is made with due modesty; for upon one 
occasion when he asked an old fisherman who had taken menhaden for fifty 
years, and all the way from Casco Bay, in Maine, to Port Arthur, Tex., ‘Captain, 
what do you know about menhaden?” the answer, very emphatically given, 
was, “ Not a damn thing.” 
It is, however, a clearly established fact that the menhaden seek this coast 
for food and not to spawn. 
