368 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



long, sensitive barbels aid tbem in their searcb for buried treasures of food. They feed upon all 

 bottom-dwelling invertebrates. Their teeth are extremely heavy and pavement-like; their jaws 

 arc provided with vciy powerful muscles, by means of which they can crush with great ease the 

 shells of the most strongly protected invertebrates. 



It is claimed by oyster-planters that the Drum is very destructive ' to the oyster-beds. Mr. 

 Stearns writes : " Oysters are their favorite food on the Gulf coast, and they destroyed a great 

 many at Apalachicola, Saint Andrew's, Mobile, and Galveston Bays. The Mobile oyster-planters 

 attribute the bulk of their losses to Drums. At Peusacola I have known a boat-load of oysters, 

 fifty barrels, that were thrown overboard to be preserved, to be entirely consumed in eight or ten 

 days by them, leaving but a heap of broken shells." 



While it is probable that the Drum feeds upon oysters as well as upon crabs or shrimps, it is 

 probable that the extent of their destructiveness has been somewhat exaggerated ; for instance, 

 it was claimed a few years ago that oysters in New York Bay to the value of hundreds of thou- 

 sands of dollars were destroyed by Drums. This seems quite unlikely, since the Drum is by no 

 means a common fish so far north as New York. 



The name " Drum," as every one knows, alludes to the loud drumming noise which is heard, 

 especially in the breeding season, and is doubtless the signal by which the fish call to their mates. 

 This habit of drumming is shared by many fishes of this family, but appears to be most highly 

 developed in the Drum, and in a European species known as the Maigre, Scicena aquila. M. 

 Dnfosse has investigated very thoroughly the physiological causes of these sounds, which appear 

 to depend largely upon the action of the air-bladder. 



Mr. S. C. Clarke has made some interestiug communications regarding their breeding habits. 

 The male is the larger, and is more brightly colored, particularly at the breeding season. The 

 male drums very loud, the female in a softer tone. Fish under twenty pounds in weight do not 

 breed. About the Halifax Inlet, Southern Florida, they spawn in March in the salt-water rivers. 

 The ova sink to the bottom. They are as large as B-shot, dark brown in color, and are often 

 seen to run from the parent fish when it is captured. In a large fish the roe sometimes weighs six 

 or seven pounds. In the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico, according to Silas Stearns, they 

 spawn in April and May in inside waters. 



The northern limit of the species appears to be defined by Cape Cod. In 1873 Mr. James H. 

 Blake captured one at Provincetown. Another, of twenty-five pounds' weight, was secured by 

 Vinal Edwards for the Fish Commission from Rogers' Pound, Quissett, Massachusetts, July, 1874; 

 another large individual, of sixty pounds' weight, was taken near Noank, Connecticut, July 10, 

 1874, the third instance of its capture known to the fishermen of that vicinity. 



Schoepf, writing about the year 178G, says that they were at that time very rare about New 

 York, though he had occasionally seen them at the city market, where they met with sale, though 

 their flesh was none of the hardest. 



The Drums captured north of Sandy Hook have been, so lar as I can learn, large adult fish 

 Professor Bainl found the young fish of this species very abundant in August in the small bays 

 along the shores of Beasley's Point, New Jersey, though few were seen in the rivers. 



North of Maryland the fish is of little economical importance. In the Chesapeake region, 

 according to Uliler and Lugger, 2 its flesh is much esteemed, and its roe is a great delicacy; consid- 

 erable numbers are brought to* the Baltimore markets in spring and fall. 



1 New York fishermen say that a school of these fish destroyed seven thousand barrels of oysters in Prince's Bay 

 in two days some years ago. FRKD. MATHER, Chicago Field, September 13, 1879, p. 67. 

 "Rep. Com. Fish. Maryland, reference 76, p. 99. 



