290 BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
RELATION OF MENHADEN TO FISHES THAT FEED UPON THEM. 
Goode says: 
Among the enemies of menhaden may be counted every predaceous animal which 
swims in the same waters. Whales and dolphins follow the schools and consume them 
by the hogshead. Sharks of all kinds prey upon them largely; one hundred have been 
taken from the stomach of one shark. All large carnivorous fishes feed upon them. 
The tunny is the most destructive. * * * The pollock, the whiting, the striped 
bass, the cod, the squeteague, and the garfish are savage foes. The swordfish and the 
bayonet fish destroy many, rushing through the schools and striking right and left with 
their powerful swords. The bluefish and bonito are, however, the most destructive 
enemies, not even excepting man; these corsairs of the sea, not content with what they 
eat, which is of itself an enormous quantity, rush ravenously through the closely crowded 
schools, cutting and tearing the living fish as they go, and leaving in their wake the 
mangled fragments. Traces of their carnage remain for weeks in the great ‘‘slicks’’ 
of oil so commonly seen on smooth water in summer. * * * I estimate the total 
number destroyed annually on our coast at a million million of millions; in comparison 
with which the quantities destroyed by men yearly sink into insignificance. 
Such estimates, Goode states, are only approximate. It may be a question 
as to whether they are even approximate. If he deduces his estimates from a 
sufficient number of well-established facts, they may be considered approximate; 
but the evidence is that he reaches his conclusion by induction from a limited 
number of facts. One shark is known to have eaten 100 menhaden. One shark 
might contain 1,000 menhaden as a day’s feast, but that would not be sufficient 
evidence upon which to base a conclusion that all sharks eat 1,000 menhaden 
each day in the year. One tunny may have been observed to almost annihilate 
a school of menhaden, but it does not follow that all the tunnies in the region 
consume a school of menhaden each every day. A school of bluefish is occa- 
sionally seen to wreak havoc upon hundreds of menhaden, but it does not suffi- 
ciently indicate that they do it every day. One squeteague having been found 
to devour nearly 50 menhaden does not clearly prove that the exclusive menu of 
the squeteague is nearly 50 menhaden a day. An average of 100 menhaden a 
day to a shark or its equivalent for three hundred days would require 333,333,- 
333,333,333 sharks, or their equivalent in eating capacity, to devour a million 
million of millions menhaden in that length of time. 
It is not a justifiable assumption that all of the predaceous animals previously 
enumerated feed exclusively and daily upon menhaden, even during the time 
that they are concurrently on the coast. Among fishes concerning whose habits 
we are better informed than those under discussion, it is known that they change 
their diet from time to time, and there are periods of days when they do not feed 
at all. One is almost as fully justified in assuming that a fish which is found to 
have eaten nothing during the day does not feed at all as that one found to con- 
tain a few menhaden feeds continuously and exclusively upon menhaden. Yet 
undoubtedly enormous quantities of menhaden are destroyed annually by fishes 
and other predaceous animals. Professor Goode further remarks that in estimat- 
ing the importance of the menhaden to the United States it should be borne in 
