﻿12 BULLETIN 2, TJ. S. DEPARTMENT OE AGEICULTUEE. 



An examination of bottom mud has shown it to contain large quantities 

 of living and dead microorganisms, making up more than half of its 

 bulk. This is supposed to constitute the food of the bivalves and 

 other aquatic animals of similar habits. It has been shown by Peck x 

 that the menhaden is provided with a mechanism, situated upon the 

 anterior edge of the gill arches, and known as " gill rakers," by means 

 of which it is able to strain out from the water in which it swims the 

 microorganisms which live there. " These minute organisms furnish 

 directly the food of the menhaden. * * * The whole food supply 

 of this fish is obtained by filtering out from the surface stratum of 

 water the organic life there suspended." 2 



SPAWNING. 



Very little is known definitely of the breeding habits of the men- 

 haden. Numerous theories are entertained by the fishermen. Some 

 confess ignorance; others believe they spawn in southern rivers; 

 others, that they spawn " on the edge of the Gulf stream." 



The large number of young which appear on the coast of North 

 Carolina in early spring indicate the nearness of the spawning ground 

 to that region and of the spawning season to that time. The absence 

 of a developed roe in the fish of that region in the summer and its 

 appearance only in late fall and winter mark the time of spawning 

 there as the winter or early spring. As the fish have disappeared 

 from the coast at that time, except along the Carolinas and Florida, 

 the spawning ground must be on the shores of either the Carolinas 

 or Florida. Evidence is lacking that they enter the rivers at this 

 time in sufficient numbers to represent a concerted movement toward 

 a spawning ground, such as is shown by other fish, occurring in 

 much smaller numbers than the menhaden, in the spawning season. 



Hathaway 3 states that he has examined many hundreds of men- 

 haden caught between Cape Lookout, N. C, and Georgetown, S. C, 

 from the 20th of November to the 10th of December, among which 

 there was not one that did not show a roe development such as to 

 indicate that it would spawn within 30 to 60 days. 



Smith has shown that menhaden have been taken on the coast of 

 North Carolina in November from which spawn was running show- 

 ing conclusively that menhaden may spawn in November, 4 and states 

 that in spring and early summer the menhaden spawns in abundance 

 on the northern part of the middle Atlantic and the southern part 

 of the New England coast, and in late autumn and early winter on 

 the southern part of the middle Atlantic and the northern part of the 

 south Atlantic coast. 



1,1 On the Food of the Menhaden," Ball. TJ. S. Pish Commission, 189:!, p. 113. 



2 Peck, loc. cit. cf. p. 114. 



3 " The Menhaden Industry," American Fertilizer, 38, 44 (1913). 



* Smith, Hugh M., Fishes of North Carolina, N. C. Geol. and Econ. Survey, p. 132. 

 « Hathaway, Bull. Bureau of Fisheries, 1908, Pt. I, cf. pp. 277-278. 



