NOTES ON SOME BEAUFORT FISHES— 1909 1 



E. W. GUDGER 

 State Normal College, Greexsboro, N. C. 



The following observations were made while working 

 at the Station of the Bureau of Fisheries at Beaufort, 

 N. C, from May 26 to July 6, 1909, and are recorded in 

 brief in the card catalogue of fishes in the laboratory. 

 While they are but membrana disjecta, they are published 

 in the hope that they may not be devoid of value to those 

 interested in fishes. 



These fishes, with the exception of the ones specifically 

 noted from other localities, were taken at the Narrows of 

 Newport River. This is a small stream, whose sunken 

 lower valley is an estuary opening into and forming a 

 part of Beaufort Harbor. The Narrows, distant some 

 seven miles in a northeasterly direction from the labora- 

 tory, are at the head of the estuary. Here are a number 

 of ' ' rocks ' ' or reefs built by oysters out on the mudflats. 

 Their names, as one comes to them in going up stream, 

 are Lawton's, Cross and Rockfish Rocks, and a fourth 

 one not named. These reefs, extending out at nearly 

 right angles from the shore, give the channel a very tor- 

 tuous course. Above them the mudflats spread out so 

 shallow that the river is not navigable save for small 

 boats and by them only at high water. The waters of the 

 ebb tides, collected off these mudflats and largely confined 

 by the reefs to this narrow channel, surge around these 

 points and have scoured out deep holes. Here are to be 

 found large numbers of various fishes, which go up the 

 river to feed on the mudflats and at low tide drop down 

 into these holes. There is no seining ground at Beau- 

 fort, known to the writer, where so many different species 

 of fishes may be taken at a single haul of the seine as at 

 the ' 'Rocks" at the Narrows of Newport River. 



It is interesting to note that the water at the Narrows 



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