372 Biology in America 



of reproduction, their increase or decrease under varying 

 conditions of environment and their movements from place 

 to place. It is essential, not alone to a science of the sea, 

 but also to a knowledge of its economic resources and the 

 best means of their utilization. 



The dependence of fish and other animals, which man 

 appropriates to his own use, upon the lower forms of life 

 within the sea is matter of common knowledge. On our 

 Atlantic Coast is an industry with a value in round numbers 

 of $3,700,000 annually, and giving employment to 5894 people, 

 the menhaden fishery. The menhaden produces 6,600,000 

 gallons of oil every year which is used in making paint and 

 varnish and for other purposes. 3 After the oil has bean 

 extracted from the fish their remains are dried and 

 ground up for fertilizer. They are also eaten to some extent. 

 Professor Peck, in his study of the food habits of this fish sev- 

 eral years ago, found that it fed exclusively on the minute 

 plants and animals floating in the water. In feeding, the 

 menhaden swims through the water with open mouth, at the 

 rate of about two feet per second ; and as it does so the water 

 is filtered through the gills which form a fine sieve, allowing 

 the water to pass freely but straining out the small organisms 

 it contains, which are swallowed by the fish. In this way it fil- 

 ters about seven gallons of water per minute, obtaining from it 

 about a cubic inch of food material in five minutes. 4 From 

 this it may readily be seen that the size of a menhaden's meal 

 is limited only by its industry in eating it. The abundance 

 of oil in this fish is due to its food, and thus we have a 

 beautiful example ol the value to man of the unseen and 

 often unconsidered wealth of the waters. 



The menhaden is not a large fish, weighing but little over 

 a half pound on the average, but one of the giants of the sea, 

 the blue whale, which reaches a length of nearly ninety feet 

 and an estimated weight of seventy-five tons, and is probably 

 the largest animal which ever lived, is likewise dependent on 

 the small creatures of the sea for its food. The fast vanish- 

 ing whalebone, which in years gone by played so large, a 

 part in shaping the fate as well as form of women, is obtained 

 from the massive plates of bone- like baleen which fringe the 

 palate of this and some other whales, and serve them as a 

 strainer by means of which they obtain their food. The 

 whale in feeding takes a few barrels of water into its capacious 

 mouth ; then as the mouth is closed and the tongue raised the 



Data for 1912 from U. S. Bur. Fish. Doc., No. 811, 1917. 



4 This amount was estimated by Professor Peck in the month of July 

 at the mouth of the Acushnet River at New Bedford, Mass. It would 

 naturally vary greatly at different seasons and in different places. 



