570 NATURAL HISTOKY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



which has •since beeu commonly accepted. A prior description by Latrobe, in 1802, long lost 

 sight of, renders it necessary, as I have elsewhere demonstrated, to adopt the specific name 

 tyrannus. The geuns Brevooriia, of which this species is the type, was established by Gill in 1861. 



Distribution. — The geogra^jhical range of Brevoortia tyrannus varies from year to year. In 

 1877 it was, so far as it is definable in words, as follows: The wanderings of the species are bounded 

 by the parallels of north latitude 25° and 45° ; on the continental side by the line of brackish 

 water; on the east by the inner boundary of the Gulf Stream. In the summer it, occurs in the 

 coastal waters of all the Atlantic States from Maine to Florida, in winter only south of Oape 

 Hatteras. The limits of its winter migration oceanwards cannot be defined, though it is demon- 

 strated that the species does not occur about the Bermudas or Cuba, nor presumably in the Ca- 

 i.ibbean Sea. In Brazilian waters occurs a geographical race of the same species, Brevooriia 

 tyrannus, subspecies aurea (the Clupanodon aureus of Agassiz and ?pix) ; on the coast of Paraguay 

 and Patagonia by Brevoortia pectinata ; in the Gulf of Mexico by Brevoortia patr onus/ 



Movements. — With the advance of spring Menhaden appear near our coasts in company with, 

 and usually slightly in advance of, the other non-resident species, such as as the Shad, Alewife, 

 Bluefish, and Squeteagne. The following general conclusions regarding their movements are 

 deduced from the statements of about two hundred observers at different points on the coasts from 

 Florida to Nova Scotia^. 



At the approach of settled warm weather they make their appearance ii the inshore waters. 

 It is manifestly impracticable to indicate the periods of their movements except in an approximate 

 way. The comparison of two localities distant apart one or two hundred miles will indicate very 

 little. When wider ranges are compared there becomes perceptible a certain proportion in the 

 relations of the general averages. There is always a balance in favor of earlier arrivals in the more 

 southern localities; thus it becomes apparent that the first schools appear in Chesapeake Bay in 

 March and April ; on the coast of New Jersey in April and early May ;' on the south coast of New 

 England in late April and May ; oft' Cape Ann about the middle of May, and in the Gulf of Maine 

 in the latter part of May and the first of June. Returning, they leave Maine late in September 

 or in October ; Massachusetts in October, November, and December, the latest departures being 

 those of fish which have been detained in the narrow bays and creeks; Long Island Sound and 

 vicinity in November and December; Chesapeake Bay in December, and Cape Hatteras in 

 January. Farther to the south they appear to remain more or less constantly throughout the year. 



It is a strange fact that their northern range has become considerably restricted within the 

 past twenty-five years. Perley, writing in 1852, stated that they were sometimes caught in con- 

 siderable numbers about Saint John's, New Brunswick, and thSre is abundance of other testimony 

 to the fact that they formerly frequented the Bay of Fundy in its lower parts; at present the east- 

 ward wanderings of the schools do not extend beyond Isle an Haut and Great Duck Island, about 

 forty miles west of the boundaries of Maine and New Brunswick. They have not been known to 

 pass these limits for ten or fifteen years. They have this year hardly passed north of Cape Cod, 

 ^nd forty or more steamers, which have usually reaped an extensive harvest on the coast of 

 Maine, have been obliged to return to the fishing grounds of Southern New England, where Men- 

 haden are found as abundantly as ever. 



I have elsewhere shown the arrival of the Menhaden schools to be closely synchronous with 

 the period at which the weekly average of the surface temperatures of the harbors rises to 51° F., 

 that they do not enter waters in which, as about Eastport, Maine, the midsummer surface tern- 



1 Tho first catch of Menhaden hy the fleet in 1881 was off Long Branch, May 6, when Gallup & Holmes' steamer 

 took eight hundred bushels. 



