104 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



winter migration come in contact with tbe schools from the north, other- 

 wise the parasites would naturally be communicated. If it inhabits 

 the mouths of the fish only while they remain inshore, and has there- 

 fore a fixed fauual relation to certain parts of the coast, it may be con- 

 cluded that the menhaden of particular schools are like, the anadromous 

 fishes, restricted to particular portions of the coast, and that those 

 schools which enter the southern inlets in spring do not proceed farther 

 north in their migration, but remain in those localities throughout the 

 season. Still other conclusions maybe forced upon the investigator: 

 it may be that the adult Cymothoa never quits its position in the month 

 of the fish, and that the young only swim about in search of unoccupied 

 quarters, and in this case it need not necessarily follow that the parasite 

 would be communicated by southern to northern fish if they were to find 

 their winter homes in the same waters. The study of this curious para- 

 site and its habits will at any rate prove interesting and instructive.* 



Other parasites. 



141. The menhaden seems remarkably free from other parasites, and 

 especially from intestinal worms, not one of which has been met with in 

 numerous dissections. Leeches are occasionally found upon the gills, 

 and there are one or more species of lerntBans. Mr. Uance Lawson, of 

 Crisfield, Md., refers to one of these, saying that " there is a five pronged 

 insect sometimes found on the tail which makes a sore and which we 

 call grappling" — a name doubtless referring to its shape, which might 

 call to mind a grappling-iron ; several other correspondents refer to a 

 parasite which is unmistakably a lernoean. 



I know of only one described species of crustacean parasilic upon the 

 species, and this is found also upon the alewife. It is the Lerneonema 

 radiata (Lesueur) Stp. and Ltk., first described in 1828. It is found 

 figured in the first report of the United States Commissioner of Fish- 

 eries, plate VII, Fig. 30, and below, plate X. 



26. — PrEDACEOUS FOES. 



Whales and dolphins. 



142. Man, with his instruments for wholesale destruction, takes six 

 or seven hundred millions of these fish annually, but he is only one of 

 its many enemies. Whales follow the schools and consume them in 

 great numbers. Mr. B. B. Phillips states that finback and hump-back 

 whales always appear in Massachusetts Bay when the menhaden come. 

 According to Capt. John Grant, keeper of the light-house on Matinicus 

 Eock, Maine, " The whale rises beneath tliem as they play upon the 

 surface and, with extended jaws, forces himself up through the school 

 with such speed as to project his body half out of water, closing his 

 jaws over large quantities of fish as he falls heavily back.'' 



* This paragraph was written two years before paragraphs 84-91. 



