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THE AMEBIC AN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIV 



is markedly brackish, owing to the large amount of fresh 

 water brought down by the river. This, coming from the 

 cypress swamps a few miles away, has a decidedly yellow- 

 ish tinge, the so-called " juniper water." In density this 

 water ranges from 1.0072 just after one of the tropical 

 downpours to which Beaufort is subject, to 1.0184 when 

 only the normal amount of fresh water is brought down. 

 Ten observations for last summer, which was a normal 

 one from the standpoint of rainfall, give an average den- 

 sity of 1.0153. The average temperature of the water at 

 the time of these observations was 23.6° C. at a depth of 

 three to five feet. 



From May 26 to June 12 we constantly caught large 

 numbers of small menhaden, Breroortia tyrannus, aver- 

 aging about four inches in length. These are probably 

 young of the previous fall spawning. The average size of 

 adult menhaden is about 12 inches. The largest ever 

 taken at Beaufort by the writer was 15 inches long. The 

 record fish for the Atlantic coast is 18 inches in length. 



The writer has taken hundreds of gaff topsail catfish 

 at the Narrows, some quite large, but the record was 

 broken on May 27 by the capture of a female, whose 

 length from tip of nose to tip of caudal fin was 24 \ inches, 

 and whose girth back of the dorsal was 13 inches. The 

 abdomen was distended balloon fashion by the enormous 

 ovary which occupied almost all of its interior, crowding 

 and displacing the stomach and intestine as it enlarged. 

 This ovisac, after being three days in 10-per-cent. for- 

 malin, measured 7.j inches in length and \Y± inches in 

 girth, and weighed 435 grams. 



On May 27, at Cross Rock, we took a large tripletail or 

 flasher, Lobotes surinamensis. Its length all over was 

 25 inches, its depth (body only) 10^ inches. Unfortu- 

 nately there was at hand no means for weighing it. 

 Other large fish of this kind recorded in the card cata- 

 logue at the laboratory are, one 21 inches long and 8.V 

 inches deep, another 18| inches long, a third 18 inches 

 long. All were taken by the writer; the last in the pound 

 net two miles up Newport River, the others at the Nar- 



