98 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



day and each lobster subjected to a detailed examination, all of the 

 points on which information was desired being carefully noted and 

 recorded. 



The studies of Br. Peck related chiefly to the food and feeding habits 

 of the menhaden, which resort in considerable numbers to the region 

 adjacent to Woods Hole, and his report 1 upon the work accomplished 

 must be given a place in the front rank of biologic-economic contribu- 

 tions, both for the thoroughness with which the subject was treated and 

 the uniqueness of the results. But few specimens of menhaden could 

 be obtained at that season in the open waters, and the majority of 

 those examined were from the smaller bays, brackish- water estuaries, 

 and shallow lagoons. The material secured from those sources was 

 quite sufficient to demonstrate the general character of the food, as well 

 as some of its details, and to illustrate the mechanism by which it is 

 taken. The food of the menhaden consists of the unicellular organisms, 

 both vegetable and animal, which swarm in all surface waters, together 

 with the smaller crustaceans and other free-swimming forms which con- 

 gregate there. 



The presence in a region of the brackish, even almost fresh, waters 

 of broad shallow estuaries and inlets, connecting with the sea only by 

 narrow channels, is very important as affecting the kind and abundance 

 of the various microscopic organisms used by this fish as food. The 

 streams tributary to them also bring down a wealth of fresh-water 

 microorganisms of the most important nature, and salt-water forms 

 are carried in with each tide, giving a new intensity to the struggle. 

 These minute organisms furnish directly the food of the menhaden, not 

 only within the limits of the brackish- water inlets and estuaries where 

 the spawn is left to develop, but also wherever the fish is found in the 

 more open coast waters. The whole food supply of this species is 

 obtained by filtering out from the surface stratum of water the organic 

 life there suspended. The observations of Dr. Peck related to the 

 younger as well as to the adult stages of the fish. After discussing 

 the different groups of organisms which were discovered among its 

 food, he adds : 



Such being, then, the primitive character of the food supply of the menhaden, its 

 economic relations are very important; it arrives first hand at a food supply which 

 is the most stable, the most abundant and widely distributed of all foods, and yet 

 so unavailable to the majority of other species. The wide distribution and vast 

 extent of the schools of this fish testify to this fact, for no matter how many are 

 aggregated together in a given area the food supply is adequate. At the same time the 

 menhaden comes into no competition with the other food-Ashes. * * Not only, 



therefore, do the menhaden not compete with other fishes for food, but they them- 

 selves form an important factor in the food of other fishes, as has been so often 

 observed in the bluefish, bonito, and squeteague; making available through their 

 own life-history favorable conditions upon which the other economic fishes are borne 

 and satisfied, bringing to them directly an elaboration of this primitive food supply 

 here considered. 



1 On the Food of the Menhaden, by James I. Peck, Ph. D., Bull. U. S. Fish Com., 

 xiii, for 1893, pp. 113-126, pis. 1-8. 



