352 
PACIFIC SCIENCE, VoL V, October, 1951 
The food and feeding habits of nehu and 
other engraulids are quite similar to those of 
the closely related clupeids. Herring in the 
North Pacific (Kuragami, 1930; Wailes, 
1935), in the North Atlantic (Moore, 1898; 
Weber and Wilson, 1920; Bigelow and Welsh, 
1925), and in European waters (Widegren, 
1876; Lebour, 1924; Hardy, 1924; Jespersen, 
1928; Savage, 1931, 1937; Lucas, 1936) all 
consume about the same components of the 
zooplankton as do nehu. Sardines, both in 
Japanese and California waters (Suyehiro, 
1942 ), consume a good deal of phytoplank- 
ton as well as zooplankton, with the compo- 
sition of the stomach contents roughly pro- 
portional to the composition of the plankton. 
Thus, the food habits of nehu resemble those 
of herring more closely than those of sardines, 
yet there are other anchovies which feed more 
like sardines than like herring. 
Selective feeding: The question of selective 
feeding may best be answered by considering 
the feeding habits in each area for which data 
have been collected on available food organ- 
isms. A comparison of Tables 2 and 3 for 
Kaneohe Bay indicates that (1) nehu do not 
accept planktonic forms indiscriminately, be- 
cause few plankters other than crustaceans 
are eaten, although the dominant components 
of the plankton are chaetognaths and cteno- 
phores; and (2) nehu do take the dominant 
crustacean types, about in proportion to their 
occurrence; i.e., copepods, mysis larvae of 
shrimps, zoeal larvae of crabs, and nauplii of 
barnacles, which are the most abundant forms 
found in the stomach contents, also pre- 
dominate in the available plankton. 
A similar analysis was made in Ala Wai 
Canal (Tables 5 and 6) with quite different 
results. Here ghost shrimps predominate by 
far in the stomach contents, and nine out of 
every ten fish contained them. By comparing 
the data in the tables indicated above, it is 
clear that in this locality (1) nehu do dis- 
criminate among the total composition of the 
plankton, e.g., they did not contain any 
medusae, isopods, chaetognaths, or poly- 
chaetes, and (2) nehu do not accept the 
crustaceans present in the plankton in the 
order of their abundance. From the stand- 
point of organisms available, crab zoeae and 
barnacle nauplii exceeded by far the number 
of ghost shrimps present, yet the percentage 
composition of the food items consumed, 
based on the total number of organisms found 
in the stomachs, shows that ghost shrimps 
were unquestionably preferred. The smaller, 
but more abundant crustaceans such as crab 
zoeae, barnacle nauplii, copepods, and the 
zoeal and mysis larvae of shrimps were al- 
most neglected, and in no case did as much 
as 10 per cent of the fish examined take them. 
TABLE 5 
Food of Nehu {Stole phorus purpureus) in Ala Wai Canal, Honolulu, Based on an Analysis of 81 Stomachs 
ORGANISM 
PERCENTAGE 
FREQUENCY OF 
OCCURRENCE 
AMONG FISH 
EXAMINED 
AVERAGE 
NUMBER TAKEN 
PER FISH 
CONTAINING 
THE ITEM 
PERCENTAGE COMPOSITION 
OF FOOD ITEMS BASED 
ON TOTAL NUMBER OF 
ORGANISMS FOUND 
IN THE STOMACHS 
Ghost shrimos {Leuctfer faxonii) 
91 
27 
90 
Shrimps 
mysis stage 
5 
15 
3 
zoeae 
5 
9 
2 
Barnacles 
cypris stage 
10 
9 
3 
nauplii 
1 
3 
TRACE 
Copepods 
adults 
9 
4 
1 
eggs 
1 
3 
TRACE 
Crab zoeae 
6 
1 
TRACE 
Filamentous algae 
1 
1 
TRACE 
