94 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The steamer Fish Hawk also assisted in the work here during a part of 

 June. The region between Cape Cod and the Bay of Fundy, including 

 the coast waters of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, and 

 the Gulf of Maine, was assigned to Capt. A. 0. Adams, formerly in 

 command of the schooner Grampus, and having a long experience in 

 connection with the mackerel fishery. His inquiries were started at 

 Provincetown on Cape Cod, about the middle of May, and were thence 

 extended along the shores of Massachusetts Bay, Cape Ann, and the 

 coast farther north to Portland, where he was joined by the steamer 

 Fish Hawk and Dr. Wolhaupter in the latter part of June. By the 

 close of the year the examination had been carried as far east as 

 Boothbay Harbor. 



MENHADEN. 



From the 1st of March to early in May, 1894, the steamer Fish Hawh 

 Lieut. Robert Piatt, II. S. N., commanding, was stationed in the lower 

 Chesapeake Bay investigating the spawning and other habits of the 

 menhaden and making observations respecting the natural history of 

 the other economic fishes of the region, and the fisheries to which they 

 give rise. Mr. W. C. Kendall was on duty as naturalist during the 

 first part of the season, being succeeded later by Dr. W. E. Wolhaupter. 

 The collecting work was carried on by means of seines, fyke nets, gill 

 nets, and the beam trawl, and specimens were obtained from the fisher- 

 men wherever possible. In this manner much important information 

 was secured relative to the life-history, distribution, seasons, food, 

 spawning characteristics, etc., of several species. Physical observations 

 relating more especially to the temperature and density of the water 

 were also conducted at frequent intervals during the entire cruise. 



The fact seems to have been quite conclusively established, through 

 recent observations, that the menhaden resort to shallow, protected 

 coastal waters, such as bays, inlets, and the lower parts of rivers and 

 creeks, for spawning purposes, and that the young remain for a 

 considerable length of time in the same or similar situations, but 

 persistent investigations have failed to discover the mature fish in the 

 act of breeding. A few specimens have been secured from time to time 

 containing ripe eggs or ripe milt, but ripe individuals of both sexes have 

 never yet been taken together, thus precluding the fertilization and 

 hatching of the spawn artificially, whereby the conditions necessary 

 to that process could positively be ascertained. The Fish Hawk was 

 again unsuccessful in regard to the matter this spring, but many inter- 

 esting observations on the young of different stages and on the adult 

 fish were obtained, and from the evidence supplied by the fishermen 

 and by the condition of the fish it was concluded that the spawning 

 period in the Chesapeake Bay region occurs probably in February or 

 March, or during parts of both of those months. 



Mr. Vinal K. Edwards, of the Woods Hole Station, also gave much 

 time during the spring of 1891 to the study of the menhaden question 



