FOURTEEN TELEOSTEAN FISHES AT BEAUFORT, N. C. 
387 
for collecting fish of such sizes was used only during the last year of the investigation, 
whereas methods for taking the small fry and larger young were used much longer. 
The result is, of course, that fewer specimens of the intermediate sizes generally 
were obtained. 
In addition to the collections made during the present investigation the authors 
have had for study and comparison certain collections of young fish from the South 
Atlantic coast of the United States and in the West Indies made by the United 
States Bureau of Fisheries vessels, the Fish Hawk, the Albatross, and the Grampus. 
The discussions, measurements, and drawings of eggs and of the recently hatched 
young, resulting from these eggs, are based upon living material. In all other 
instances the data were obtained from preserved specimens. Length measurements 
of specimens as given in this paper are total lengths; that is, they include the caudal 
fin or fin fold. 
REMARKS 
Many species of fishes that are common in the shallow waters during the summer 
leave these areas in the autumn upon the approach of cold weather. This not only 
happens at Beaufort, but it takes place in Chesapeake Bay and, no doubt, quite 
generally along the Atlantic coast of the United States. The following spring the 
fish return to reoccupy their summer feeding grounds. In most cases it is not known, 
however, where these fish have their winter homes. 
The spot and the croaker — two species subsequently discussed in this paper — 
are among the species that leave their summer homes in the autumn and, at Beaufort, 
at least, are seldom seen during the winter. In view of this fact it is especially 
interesting that their young are exceedingly numerous in the local waters during 
the winter, and that this season, in fact, is their spawning time. Fry of these species, 
so small and so young that they certainly are not more than a few days old, occur 
regularly in abundance along the outer shores of the banks and at sea as far offshore 
as winter collecting has been extended; that is, about 15 miles. Flow much farther 
they occur at sea, of course, remains unknown. 
It is pointed out in subsequent sections of this paper that the smallest fry col- 
lected — only 2, 3, and 4 millimeters in length — are helpless creatures and certainly 
unable to swim in any definite direction. This leads to the conclusion that, under 
the usual weather conditions prevailing at Beaufort, they must have been hatched in 
the general vicinity where they are taken. If that be true, then it follows that the 
spawning fish can not be far away. The theory, therefore, is advanced, in subsequent 
sections of this report that the adult fish, after leaving their summer homes, occupy 
water not very far from the shores and there perform their reproductive processes. 
Some evidence also is produced in that section of this paper dealing with the pig- 
fish indicating that this fish, too, has its winter home only a comparatively short dis- 
tance from the shores. The writers, accordingly venture to predict that, in time, it 
will be found that most of the numerous species taken in the shallow shore waters 
during the summer, constituting in fact the bulk of our food fishes, merely migrate 
to deeper and warmer water, possibly in the vicinity of the Gulf Stream which flows 
past Beaufort at a distance of only about 30 miles offshore. 
It is very interesting, also, that the young of the scad, Decapterus pundatus and 
of the flyingfishes, Parexoccdus mesogaster and Cypselurus jurcatus — all summer 
spawners — have been taken in large numbers off Beaufort Inlet, while the adults 
are known from that vicinity from only a few to several specimens. It is judged 
from the abundance of the young that the adults too must be common. These species 
