HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 13 



The derivatiou of this name may be easily traced, it having evidently 

 been transferred by the Dutch colonists from the scad or horse-mack- 

 erel, Caranx trachurus (Linn.) Lacepede, a fish which annually visits the 

 shores of Northern Europe in immense schools, swimming at the sur- 

 face in much the same manner as our Brevoortia, and which is known to 

 the Hollanders as the Marsbanl-er* 



In the Museum Ichthyologicum of Gronow,t published in 1754, the 

 name Marsbanker is used in speaking of a scombroid fish, frequently 

 taken with the herriiig, probably the same below referred to.f 



The name is variously spelled •' mossbunker," " mossbonker," " mass- 

 banker," "mousebuuker," " marshbunker," " marshbanker,"and " morse- 

 bonker," and is also familiarly shortened into " bunker," a name in com- 

 mon use at the eastern end of Long Island. 



28. The name '"• alewife" was given by the Virginia colonists to this 

 species from its resemblance to the allied species known by that name 

 in England. This name is preoccupied by the Pomolohus pseudoharengiis^ 

 and should never be applied to Brevoortia. 



27. The presence of a parasitic crustacean {Gymotlioa prcvgustator) in 

 the mouth of Brevoortia^ when found in southern waters, explains the 

 name " bug-fisli " prevalent in Delaware and Cheaspeake Bays, the 

 Potomac and Eappahaunock Elvers, and the inlets of North Carolina, 

 with its local variations of "bug-head" and " buggy-head." § " Yellow- 

 land. The wind wiia high, the elements in an uproar, and no Cbaron could be found 

 to ferry the adventurous sounder of brass across the water. For a short time he vapored 

 like an impatient ghost upon the brink and then, bethinking himself of the urgency 

 of his errand, took a hearty embrace of his stone bottle, swore most valorously that he 

 would swim Across in spite of the devil (Spyfc den Duyvel), and daringly iiluuged into 

 the chasm. * * * An old Dutch burgher, famed for his veracity, and who had been 

 a witness of the fact, related to them * * * that he saw the duyvel, in the shape 

 of a huge moss-bonker, seize the sturdy Antony by the leg and drag him beneath the 

 waves. * * » Nobody ever attempts to swim across the creek after dark, and as to 

 the moss-boukers, they are held in such abhorrence that no good Dutchman will ad- 

 mit them to his table who loves good fish and hates the devil." 



* See Schlegel, Die Dieren van Nederland, Yisschen, p. 4. 



t Museum | Ichthyologicum, | sistens | Piscium | indigenorum & quorundam esoti- 

 corum, I qui in | Museo | LawrentiiTheodori | Gronovii, J. U. D, | adservantur, descrij)- 

 tiones | ordine systematic©. | Accedunt | nounullorum exoticorum Piscium icones seri 

 incistB. 1*^***1 (Cut) | Lugduni Batavorum, | Apud Theodorum Haak, | 

 MDCCLIV. I folio, 10 preliminary pages, pji. 70. 



\ 80. Scomber linea laterali aculeata, pinna, ani ossiculorum triginta, Arted. Gen. 25, n. 

 3, Synon. p. 50, n. 3. 



Scomber linea laterali cnrva, tabellis os- Belgis Marsbanlcer Frequentissime in 

 seis loricata, Gronov. act. «j)s. 1742, p. 83, Mari Septentrionale cum Clnpeisp. 5, n. 4, 

 ibique defer. Trachurys, Bossuet, epigr. j). descriptis capitur. 



74, BeUon. Aqiiat. p. 180, Dale. Hist, of Op. cit. p. 34. 



Harw., p. 131, n. 5. 



^ Captain Atwood states in the Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, 

 s, 1865, p. 67, that the half-grown menhaden are called "bug-fish" by the Virginia 

 negroes, because they believe them to have been produced from insects, since they 

 never find spawn in them there. 



