MITCH1LL ON THE FISHES OF NEW-YORK. 453 



blue on the back or sides. Back of an unmixed, though not deep 

 brown, which passes through regular gradations of hue to a silvery 

 whiteness on the sides and belly. 



Has a delicate, and, as it were, a semi-transparent appearance. 



Tail forked. Belly serrated. 



Rays, Br. 6. P. 14. V. 9. D. 14. A. 13. C. 21. 



7. Bony-Jish, Hard-heads, or Marshankers, of New-York. (Clupea 

 menhaden.) About fourteen inches long. Frequent the New-York 

 waters in prodigious numbers. From the high banks of Montock, I have 

 seen acres of them purpling the water of the Atlantic ocean. The 

 waters of Long-Island sound, and its bay, are often alive with shoals of 

 them. They are eatable ; but as they are too abundant for consump- 

 tion as food, and as there are multitudes of preferable fish, menhaden 

 are often left to putrify on the shore, or are removed to the fields for 

 manure. 



The history of this fish has been written by Mr. B. H. Latrobe, and 

 published with a figure, in the Philosophical Transactions of Philadel- 

 phia, vol. v. And the manner of converting him to an ingredient for 

 fertilizing land, has been explained by Ezra L'Hommedieu, Esq. in the 

 Agricultural Transactions of New-York, vol. i. p. 65. The aborigines 

 called him menhaden. 



The whalemen say he is the favourite food of the great bone-whale, 

 or balaena mysticetus. This creature, opening his mouth amidst a shoal 

 of menhaden, receives into its cavity the amount of some hogsheads of 

 menhaden at a gulp. These pass, one by one, head foremost, down his 

 ranow gullet ; and eye witnesses have assured me that, on cutting up 

 whales after death, great quantities of menhaden had been discovered 

 thus regularly disposed in the stomach and intestines. 



Gill-cover very large. One blackish spot on the neck near i(. 



