HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN MENHADEN. 97 



maturity. These ovaries are deposited in the United States iSTational 

 Museum (Cat. No. 10940). I examined the ripest of them in order to es- 

 timate the number of ova. The ovaries with their membranes weighed 

 17,570 milligrams, or 271.140 grains (0.G2 ounce). A portion weighing 

 420 milligrams was detached. This was found to contain approximately 

 250 ova, giving to each an average weight of one milligram and eight- 

 tenths. The estimated total number of ova is 9,700, or in round num- 

 bers 10,000, which* is close enough for all probable necessities. There is 

 no indication of the size of fish from which the ovaries were taken. I 

 am informed by Mr. Milner and Dr. Bean that in the shad and white- 

 fish the number of eggs varies with the weight of the parent. In the 

 latter species a mother fish of one pound weight will yield 20,000 eggs, 

 and one of twice that weight double the number of eggs. This enumer- 

 ation of the menhaden eggs merely serves to show that, comparatively, 

 the species is not exceedingly prolific. 



I am not aware that the number of ova in the ovary of the menhaden 

 has ever before been accurately determined. Mr. Joseph D. Parsons, 

 of Springs, Suifolk County, New York, writes that 70,000 have been 

 counted. Mr. Walter Wells, of Portland, Me., states that he has some- 

 where heard of two millions having been counted. Several writers have 

 lately expatiated on the immense fecundity of the menhaden. This has 

 not yet been established. 



No ^nature ova have been observed. 



129. From Maine to Florida there can be found very little satisfactory 

 evidence that spawn fully ripe has been seen, or that spawn or milt ever 

 has been observed to run from the fish when handled after capture. 



An instructive circumstance is mentioned by Mr. Bell, of Mispillion 

 Elver, Delaware Bay, who states that after the last of these fish had dis- 

 appeared from those waters, about the 7th of November, 1874, the bay 

 from Cape May to Cape Heulopen and eighteen miles above its mouth 

 was crowded with the largest menhaden ever seen on the coast, many 

 of them equaling a medium-sized shad, and nearly three-fourths of them 

 pregnant with large and nearly matured roe. They had been driven in 

 by the bluefish which destroyed and pursued them ashore in vast num.- 

 bers. Sixty hours after the arrival of the menhaden not one was to be 

 found on the coast. 



According to Captain Atwood, of Provincetown, some menhaden 

 taken at that place in December had mature spawn.* He suggests that 

 these fish, which were very few in number, may have been detained in 

 the creeks by accident. 



*4. statement hy Mr. AtJcins. 



130. Boardman and Atkins, apparently quoting from Mr. George B. 

 Kenuiston, state that off the coast of Virginia, about Christmas, the 



* Proceedings of the Boston Society of Natural History, vol. x, j). 67. 

 7 F 



