52 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



j>rosccuting extensive jonrueys, in the course of which they successively 

 visited the shores of Europe and of America, penetrating into their 

 bays and sounds, and returning afterwards to the point from which 

 they started ; the adults decimated by the predaceous fishes and their 

 capture by man, but their numbers kept up by the progeny, the result 

 of their spawning operations, for which purpose it was supposed their 

 journeys were initiated. 



"In the same manner the shad and the fresh-water herring of the 

 American coast were supposed to start in the late winter along the 

 southern coast of the United States, in a huge column, the herring first, 

 and afterward the shad, first entering the Saint John's Elver in Flor- 

 ida, and while passing up the coast sending off detachments into all the 

 principal rivers, and finally stopping in about the latitude of the mouth 

 of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. 



" This theory is at present almost entirely abandoned, and there is 

 reason to believe that after the herring and shad have spawned in the 

 rivers they i)roceed to sea, and spend the period until their next anad- 

 romous movement in the immediate vicinity of the mouths of the rivers, 

 where they are followed in due course of time by their young. This 

 is illustrated by the fact that fish of nearly every prominent river show 

 some peculiarities by which both the fish-dealer and the naturalist can 

 distinguish them; the difference not being sufficient to constitute a 

 specific rank, but such as to mark them as local races. Numerous cap- 

 tures, too, in gill-nets and otherwise, off the northern coast, during the 

 period when they should be gathered together in the southern waters, 

 prove that a portion at least remain. It is difficult to imagine how a 

 shad or a river herring, spawned in the Saint Lawrence Eiver or any 

 northern stream, could avoid entering a more southern river, if in its 

 vicinity ; but if any fact has been well established of late years in the 

 history of the fishes, it is that the anadromous fish, or such as run up 

 the rivers from the sea to spawn, will return if possible to the river in 

 which they first saw the light. So true is this, that where there may 

 be two or three rivers entering the sea in close proximity, which have 

 become destitute of shad or herring in consequence of long-continued 

 obstructions, and the central one only has been restocked by artificial 

 means, the fish, year by year, will enter that stream, while those adja- 

 cent on either side will continue as barren of fish as before." 



The influence of ocean temperature on the movements of menhaden. 



85. The influence of ocean temperature on the menhaden is not at all 

 well understood, and I can here record only crude generalizations founded 

 upon very unsatisfactory data. I have before me three tables showing 

 tbo variations of temperature, by monthly means, for Key West, Fla.; 

 Jacksonville, Fla. ; Savannah, Ga.; Charleston, S. C; Wilmington, IST. 

 C; Norfolk, Ya.; Baltimore, Md.; New York City; New London, Conn.; 

 Wood's Holl, Mass. ; Portland, Me. ; and Eastport, Me. Table I shows 



