FOURTEEN TELEOSTEAN FISHES AT BEAUFORT, N. C. 
395 
appearance. Fish having this appearance of early youth have been found in a 
gravid condition in the latter part of July and in August when only 45 to 50 milli- 
meters in length. If the foregoing interpretation of age be correct, then it would 
follow that the early and largest young of the season of A. mitchilli may spawn at 
an age of 2J4 to 3 months. If these small delicate-looking fish are not young ones, 
then they probably are not A. mitchilli, but this we have not been able to demonstrate 
to date. 
FOOD 
The food of A. epsetus when it reaches a length of about 20 millimeters consists 
largely of copepods. Prior to that time it appears to feed on such minute organisms 
that they are not visible, except under high magnification, and no study of the stomach 
contents of the very small fish has been made. As the fish increases in length it 
takes copepods in greater numbers; and this diet often is supplemented by minute 
gastropods, an occasional ostracod, and rarely by an annelid worm. Adult fish 
continue to feed on copepods but include more ostracods, annelids, small gastropods, 
some minute bivalve mollusks, and occasionally Mysis. The food of A. mitchilli has 
not been studied. 
ORTHGPRISTIS CHRYSOPTERUS (Linnaeus). Pigfish; hogfish 
The pigfish or hogfish is known from New York to Mexico. It is taken in com- 
mercial abundance in southern Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and on both 
coasts of Florida; but, oddly enough, it does not appear in the statistical records 
of the Bureau of Fisheries from South Carolina and Georgia, where it does not seem 
to occur in commercial numbers. It is most abundant in North Carolina, where 
385,270 pounds were marketed in 1923. The value of the pigfish, to North Carolina 
at least, should not be judged by the pounds marketed alone, as it offers sport to 
many anglers. Although the pigfish does not rank high as a game fish, it never- 
theless holds a place of some importance; for it is the first fish in the harbors in 
the spring to take the hook, and it remains in the salt-water sounds and estuaries 
in North Carolina throughout the summer and may be caught there by the amateur 
sportsman, as well as by the more experienced angler, at such times when more 
desirable species are not biting. The pigfish reaches a maximum weight of about 
2 pounds, and examples weighing from 1 to 1% pounds are not unusual. It offers 
fair resistance when hooked, and its “grunt” may be heard before the fish is landed. 
The pigfish as known in North Carolina waters, is distinctly a shore and shallow- 
water species, seeking its food principally on the bottom. It feeds largely on crus- 
taceans, worms, and mollusks. Shrimp and fiddler crabs are good pigfish bait. 
Its habit of feeding on the bottom, and especially on worms, causes the pigfish 
in midsummer sometimes to include in its diet Balanoglossus- — a wormlike chord ate 
which is strongly scented with the odor of iodoform. The scent of this “worm” 
penetrates the flesh of the fish, and occasionally examples are caught which have a 
distinctly bad odor and taste. This detracts somewhat from its value as a food 
fish. Fish that have fed on Balanoglossus, colloquially, are said to have a “ticky 
taste.” It must be understood, however, that the great majority of the fish taken 
during the summer are not ticky and they do not have this taste at all in the spring 
and autumn, when Balanoglossus probably does not emerge from its burrows and 
is not available. The flesh of the pigfish is rather dark in color, is firm, and ordinarily 
of good flavor and rather highly esteemed. 
