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bulletin OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
have been pointed out in the description. The croaker is most readily recognized by the inferior 
mouth, the series of short barbels on each side of the chin, and the very strongly serrated preopercle. 
In tills species both sexes are capable of making a croaking sound. The croaking apparatus, 
as explained under Cynoscion regalis, consists of a pair of croaking muscles and the air bladder. 
The air bladder is peculiarly modified, for it has two hornlike appendages anteriorly and is slender 
posteriorly, ending in a sharply pointed, tail-like appendage. The croaking sound may be heard 
for a considerable distance, and it may be emitted underneath the surface of the water and after 
the fish is removed from the water. 
The croaker, with its inferior mouth and barbels on the chin, is adapted for bottom feeding. 
The food in Chesapeake Bay, as shown by 392 stomachs examined, consists of the following, named 
in the order of their apparent importance: Crustaceans, annelids, mollusks, ascidians, ophiurans, 
and fish. Besides these, considerable sand and vegetable debris were present, which may have 
been taken incidentally in the capture of food. The first three groups of food named are all im- 
portant, the other three being represented merely as “traces.” It is noteworthy that only three 
of the croakers examined had fed, in part, on fish. The crustaceans consumed were mostly small 
or minute, and the mollusks consisted of small bivalves and small gastropods. These data appear 
to show that the croaker utilizes as food the lower and smaller forms of animal life, which have no* 
direct commercial value and which in large part probably would not serve a useful purpose to man 
in any other way. 
Welsh and Breder (1923, p. 180) state that the spawning season is a long one, extending from 
August to December, and possibly later in southern waters. No ripe females appear to have been 
taken in August. These authors, however, base their contention that spawning does take place 
as early as August upon the fact that on September 12, 1916, fry 32, 36, and 41 millimeters in 
length were taken in Chesapeake Bay and in New York Bay; fry 22.5, 28, and 29 millimeters in 
length were taken from September 7 to 21. Fish with well-developed roe were common in Chesa- 
peake Bay during October and the early part of November, which probably is the principal spawn- 
ing period. The eggs and larvae of the croaker have not been studied, the smallest individuals 
known being those at hand, having a total length of about 10 millimeters. In fish of this length 
most of the fins are already well formed, the mouth is large, and the body is largely unpigmented. 
The number of eggs produced by a single fish apparently is large. The roe of a female 395 milli- 
meters (15^ inches) long, caught in the mouth of the York River, on October 25, 1921, contained 
approximately 180,000 eggs of uniform development. 
The statement made by Welsh and Breder (1923, p. 180) that spawning extends over a long 
period of time (August to December) is substantiated in a measure by the large variation in size 
of young fish taken during the fall and winter months, when many hundreds of specimens were 
collected, usually with the beam trawl, in the deeper waters of the bay. The young fish were so 
numerous that occasionally as many as 5 and 6 quarts of fish were taken in a single haul. Speci- 
