276 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
sharks are caught in the menhaden nets, as many as 275 having been taken 
by one steamer in one day. In the beginning of the menhaden fishery at the 
mouth of Delaware Bay sharks were very numerous in those waters, much 
more so than they are now, and it is believed that the constant taking of them 
in menhaden nets has caused this decrease. There can be no doubt that when- 
ever any fish that produces its young in such small numbers can be taken in 
any given water in large quantities its practical extinction is only a matter 
of persistence and reasonable time; and the writer, who has seen 7 tons of 
dogfish taken at one lifting of a deep-sea trawl, in experiments conducted by 
The Fisheries Company to the south of Block Island in September, 1907, is 
entirely satisfied that that pest of the North Atlantic coast can practically be 
exterminated. 
The bluefish is so erratic in its nature and habits and of such uncertain and 
irregular habitat that little can be said about it with any positiveness. It unques- 
tionably eats and destroys large quantities of menhaden, especially north of Dela- 
ware Bay, but as it is never caught in quantities in seines, and feeds on all 
other varieties of fish smaller than itself, it is not believed by the best authorities 
that the taking of menhaden by man has any effect whatever on bluefish. 
The only food fish of any particular value, other than the bluefish, that 
feeds to any extent on the menhaden is the weakfish, or squeteague. There 
is quite an extensively entertained opinion in certain places along the coast, 
especially in New Jersey and southern Massachusetts, that the constant taking 
of menhaden by the steamers materially diminishes the quantity of weak- 
fish and squeteague for the anglers—for the reason that the food being taken 
the weakfish and squeteague seek other waters more profitably supplied. If 
these people would only just for a moment realize that only the largest weak- 
fish feed on menhaden, those under 3 pounds rarely ever eating any but very 
small menhaden, and that the large weakfish is a sea fish and seldom frequents 
the small bays and inlets, they would know how silly this belief is. It is a fact 
that the catch of weakfish in the pounds on the New Jersey coast and by the 
New York fishing smacks has increased year by year, notwithstanding the large 
numbers of menhaden annually taken from the same waters. It can be asserted 
with entire confidence that the taking of menhaden by man has had absolutely 
no effect on the abundance or movements of weakfish during the existence of 
the menhaden industry. 
G. Brown Goode, in his ‘‘ History of the American Menhaden,” says: 
Is it too much, then, to multiply the three hundred millions of millions of men- 
haden probably consumed by the full-grown bluefish alone on the coast of New England 
in the summer months by ten? This would allow three thousand millions of millions 
of menhaden, oldand young, annually destroyed in the waters of the United States, in 
comparison with which the number annually taken by men is perfectly insignificant. 
This estimate will seem extravagant at first sight, but I believe that it will be found a 
very moderate one by any who may take the pains to investigate the question for 
themselves, 
