280 American Fisheries Society 



toral fins, "wings," are used, the trunk and tail being 

 thrown away. 



The Washington Market dealer mentioned said that the 

 French people in New York were beginning to buy skate 

 as a delicacy under the name "larae." At Boulogne, France, 

 the writer has seen quantities of it marketed. 



DISCUSSION 



Dr. Tarleton H. Bean, Albany, N. Y. : I am pretty well acquainted 

 with some of these fish, as we get them in New York waters, and I 

 should be glad to comment on some of them. 



The fresh-water silverside, Menidia beryllina, I am inclined to 

 think, is erroneously identified, unless the fauna has changed since my 

 collecting experience in Great South Bay. The common species in 

 Great South Bay is the notata, with rather heavy, rough scales and 

 broad silvery streak on the side ; and it forms a very large portion of 

 the bulk of the so-called whitebait in New York city. The beryllina 

 runs up into the fresh or slightly brackish portions of Great South 

 Bay and its adjacent waters, but, as I have said, it is extremely un- 

 common. You will find it farther south, say in Great Egg Harbor Bay, 

 New Jersey, and there it begins to be abundant, but not in Great South 

 Bay, unless times have changed very recently. 



These anchovies mentioned, the Stolephorus brownii and mitchilli 

 and the third one that has not been named because it is rather rare — ■ 

 the perfasciatus of Poey, the common name of which I do not know — : 

 are good fish unless they feed on a certain species of algae, which gives 

 them a stain and a bitter flavor. Otherwise they are the very finest 

 of salt-water fishes. Their flesh is transparent and simply delicious, 

 although they are very small, of course. 



I have heard the remark made about the southern sheepshead. Mr. 

 Worth is more familiar with that, undoubtedly, than I am. The southern 

 sheepshead does not appear to be held in esteem as a food, as com- 

 pared with the northern species. They belong to the same species, 

 hut the southern one is smaller and has different feeding grounds and 

 habits perhaps; and it does not have the flavor of the well-known 

 sheepshead of New Jersey and New r York. 



The spotted flounder, which Mr. Nichols calls sundial, I have heard 

 mentioned as a good food fish. I tried to eat it once and it seemed to 

 me tough and tasteless. 



The skates, of course, for many years have been sold in New York; 

 but the work was done so quietly that few people were aware of what 

 they were doing. The wings, or pectoral fins, are delicious. 



Another fish well known to most of us, that Mr. Nichols does not 

 name, is the sea lamprey. It runs up in the spring and is eaten in 



