II. W. Johnston, A Special Report on the Distress among the Nova Scotia Fishermen, 1870.

Case of Her Majesty's Government, op. cit., Appendix A, p. 28. Answer on Behalf of the United States of America to the Case of Her Britannic Majesty's Government, Appendix B, pp. 18, 19. Reply on Behalf of Her Britannic Majesty's Government to the Answer of the United States of America, Appendix C, pp. 9, 10. Richard H. Dana, jr., Appendix J, p. 78; Appendix F, p. 67.

APPENDIX D.

EXTRACTS FROM WRITINGS OF ICHTHYOLOGISTS RELATING TO THE

MENHADEN.

[From Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. V, 1802, pp. 77–81.] A DRAWING AND DESCRIPTION OF THE CLUPEA TYRANNUS AND ONISCUS PRÆGUSTATOR. BY BENJAMIN HENRY LATROBE, F. A. P. S.

The committee, to whom was referred Mr. Latrobe's paper on a species of Oniscus, called by the author Oniscus prægustator, reports that the same is worthy of publication.

FEBRUARY 17, 1800.

To THOMAS P. SMITH,

BENJAMIM SMITH BARTON.

PHILADELPHIA, December 18th, 1799.

One of the Secretaries of the American Philosophical Society: SIR: I beg leave, through your means, to communicate to the American Philosophical Society an account of an insect, whose mode of habitation, at least during some part of his life, has appeared to me one of the most singular, not to say whimsical, that can be conceived.

In the month of March, 1797, illness confined me, for several days, at the house of a friend on York River, in Virginia, during his absence. My inability to move farther than the shore of the river gave me leisure to examine carefully, and in more than an hundred instances, the fact I am going to mention.

Among the fish that, at this early season of the year, resort to the waters of the York River, the alewife, or old-wife, called the bay-alewife (Clupea nondescripta), arrives in very considerable shoals, and in some seasons their number is almost incredible. They are fully of the size of a large herring, and are principally distinguished from the herring by a bay or red spot above gill-fin. They are, when caught, from March to May, full-roed and fat, and are at least as good a fish for the table as the herring. In this season, each of the alewives carries in her mouth an insect, about two inches long, hanging with its back downwards and firmly holding itself by its 14 legs to the palate. The fishermen call this insect "the louse." It is with difficulty that it can be separated, and

perhaps never without injury to the jaws of the fish. The fishermen, therefore, consider the insect as essential to the life of the fish, for when it is taken out, and the fish is thrown again into the water, he is incapable of swimming and soon dies. I endeavored in numerous instances to preserve both the insect and the fish from injury, but was always obliged either to destroy the one or to injure the other. I have sometimes succeeded in taking out the insect in a brisk and lively state. As soon as he was set free from my grasp, he immediately scrambled nimbly back into the mouth of the fish and resumed his position. In every instance he was disgustingly corpulent and unpleasant to handle, and it seemed, whether he have obtained his post by force or by favor, whether he be a mere traveler or a constant resident, or what else may be his business where he is found, he certainly has a fat place of it, and fares sumptuously every day.

The drawings annexed to this account were made from the live insect, and from the fish out of whose mouth he was taken. I had no books to refer to then; but examining the Systema Naturæ of Linnæus, I was surprised to find so exact a description of the insect as follows (see Salvii Editio, Holmiæ, 1763, 1060, also Trattner's Vienna edition, same page):

"Insect, apt. Oniscus, Pedes XIV.

Antennæ setaceo.
Corpus ovale.

"O.physodes, abdomine subtus nudo caudâ, ovatâ; habitat in pelago; corpus præter caput, et caudam ultimatum, ex septem segmentis truuci, et quinque caudæ. Antennæ utrinque duo, breves. Caudæ folium terminale omino ovatum; ad latera utrinque subtus auctum duobus peteolis diphyllis, foliolis lanceolatis, obtusis, caudâ brevioribus. Cauda articuli subtus obtecti numerosis vesiculis longitudine caudæ."

From the particularity with which the Oniscus physodes is described by Linnæus, it is evident that he had the insect before him, or a description by an attentive observer. It appears also from the "habitat in pelago," that the O. physodes, if this be the insect, is found detached from his conductor. There are a few points in which the O. physodes differs from my insect. I did not observe the antennæ, perhaps for want of sufficient attention, or of a microscope. The peteoli of the tail were not, to appearance, two-leaved, and I am certain that the segments of the tail, and the tail itself, were without the vesiculi longitudine caudæ.

There are many circumstances, to ascertain which is essential to the natural history of this insect. The fish whose mouth he inhabits comes, about the same time with the shad, into the rivers of Virginia from the ocean, and continues to travel upward from the beginning of March to the middle of May; as long as they are caught upon their passage up the river, they are found fat and full of roe. Every fish which I saw had the Oniscus in his mouth, and I was assured, not only by the more ignorant fishermen, but by a very intelligent man who came down now

and then to divert himself with fishing, that, in forty years' observation, he had never seen a bay-alewife without the louse. The shad begin to return from the fresh water lean and shotten about the end of May and beginning of June, and continue descending during the remaining summer months. No one attempts then to catch them, for they are unfit for the table. Whether the bay-alewife returns with the shad, I could not learn, but it is certain that after June it is not thought worth the trouble to catch them. No one could tell me positively whether the Oniscus still continues with them, but it was the opinion of my informant, that, like every other parasite, he deserts his protector in his reduced state, for he could not recollect that he had ever seen him in the mouth of those accidentally caught in the seine in July or August.

I consider, therefore, the natural history of the Oniscus which I now communicate as very imperfect; and it were to be wished that some lover of natural science would follow up the inquiry, by endeavoring to ascertain whether he continue with, or quit the fish before his return to the ocean, and also whether he be the Oniscus physodes of Linnæus, qui habitat in pelago.

Should he be an insect hitherto undescribed, I think he might be very aptly named, Oniscus prægustator.

The bay-alewife is not accurately described in any ichthyological work which I have seen; nor can I from my drawings, which were made with a very weak hand, venture a description. From his having a reg ular prægustator, I would suggest that he ought to be named Clupea tyrannus.

The Oniscus resembles the minion of a tyrant in other respects, for he is not without those who suck him. Many of those which I caught had two or three leeches on their bodies, adhering so closely that their removal cost them their heads. Most of the marine Onisci appear to be troublesome to some one or other fish. The Oniscus ceti is well known as the plague of whales, and many of the rest are mentioned in Linnæus and Gmelin as pestes piscium.

BENJA. HENRY LATROBE, F. A. P. S.

P. S.-A gentleman well skilled in entomology informs me that he believes that in Block's History of Fishes, a work not to be had in Philadelphia, this Oniscus is mentioned. But, from a late examination of Gmelin and Fabricius, I am convinced that the Oniscus prægustator is a species not hitherto accurately described. Gmelin had probably seen the Linnæan insect, having changed the antennae utrinque duo to antennis quaternis, and left out most of the long description given by Linnæus. Neither he, Linnæus, nor Fabricius mentions the circumstance of habitation in the mouth of the fish, and the industrious and copious Fabricius, who having changed the names of the genera, calls him Cymothoa physodes, copies the description of Gmelin, excepting the mention of the 4 antennae, which in his arrangement form a character of the genus.

[From "The Fishes of New York, described and arranged," by Samuel L. Mitchill, in Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, 1815, p. 453.] BONY-FISH, HARD-HEADS, OR MARSHBANKERS, OF NEW YORK. (Clupea menhaden.)

About fourteen inches long, frequent the New York waters in prodigious numbers. From the high banks of Montock, I have seen acres of them purpling the water of the Atlantic Ocean. The waters of Long Island Sound and its bay are often alive with shoals of them. They are eatable; but as they are too abundant for consumption as food, and as there are multitudes of preferable fish, menhaden are often left to putrefy on the shore or are removed to the fields for manure.

The history of this fish has been written by Mr. B. H. Latrobe, and published with a figure, in the Philosophical Transactions of Philadelphia, Vol. v. And the manner of converting him to an ingredient for fertilizing land has been explained by Ezra L'Hommedieu, esq., in the Agricultural Transactions of New York, Vol. I., p. 65. The aborigines called him menhaden. The whalemen say he is the favorite food of the great bone-whale or Balæna mysticetus. This creature, opening its mouth amidst a shoal of menhaden, receives into its cavity the amount of some hogsheads of menhaden at a gulp. These pass, one by one, head foremost down his narrow gullet; and eye-witnesses have assured me that on cutting up whales after death, great quantities of menhaden had been discovered thus regularly disposed in the stomach and intestines.

Gill-cover very large. One blackish spot on the neck near it. Head and back greenish-brown, with a few marks of brighter green on the head. Belly and sides considerably iridescent. Back arched, rounded, and thick; tail forked; belly serrated; mouth and tongue toothless and smooth; gills rising from the back of the tongue on both sides of the wide throat.

Rays, Br. 7, P. 15, V. 7, D. 19, A. 19, C. 27.

[From "The Fishes of New York described and arranged," by Samuel L. Mitchill, in Transactions of the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York, 1815, p. 457.]

NEW YORK SHADINE (Clupea sadina).

An elegant species, with a small smutty spot behind the gill-cover, but with neither spots nor stripes on its back or sides; mouth wide and toothless; tongue small; back delicately variegated with green and blue; lateral line straight; sides silvery white, considerably above that line, and below it quite to the belly; the white reflects vividly green, red, and other splendid hues; head rather elongated; lower jaw projecting; scales very easily deciduous; form neat, taper, and slender; gills rise into the throat on each side of the root of the tongue; eyes pale and large; tail deeply forked; on account of the even connection. of the false ribs, the belly is not at all serrated, but quite smooth; a semi-transparent space in front of the eyes from side to side. Rays, Br. 7, P. 16, V. 9, D. 18, A. 15, C. 19.

[From Storer's "History of the Fishes of Massachusetts," 1867, p. 158.]

ALOSA MENHADEN, Storer. The Menhaden.

(Plate XXVI, Fig. 4.)

Clupea menhaden, Bony-fish, Hard-heads, or Marsh-bankers of New York, MITCH., Trans. Lit. and Phil. Soc. of New York, 1, p. 453, pl. 5, fig. 7.

Alosa menhaden, Menhaden, Hard-head, STORER, Report, p. 117.

Alosa menhaden, Moss-bonker, DEKAY, Report, p. 259, pl. 21, fig. 60.

Alosa menhaden, AYERS, Bost. Jour. Nat. Hist., iv, p. 275; STORER, Mem. Amer. Acad., new series, 11, p. 459.

Alosa menhaden, STORER, Synopsis, p. 207.

L'Alose menhaden, CUV. & VAL., Hist. Nat. des Pois., xx, p. 424.

Color.-Upper part of body of a greenish-brown, darker upon the top of the head and at the snout; upper part of the sides in the living fish roseous and mottled with indistinct bluish oscillations, which disappear in death; abdomen silvery; gill-covers cupreous, with a rosy tint; space in front of the eyes translucent; a black spot, more or less distinct, upon the shoulders; whole surface of the fish iridescent.

Description.-Body elongated, compressed; its depth across, at the base of the pectorals, less than one-fifth the length of the fish; length of the head more than one-third the length of the fish; gill-covers very large; opercula, with numerous deeply marked striæ, which commence just beneath a large green blotch, situated some distance back of the eye and on a line with it, and pass obliquely backward and downward to its lower edge; subopercula and interopercula smooth; preopercula presenting an arborescent appearance of vessels upon their surface; eyes circular, moderate in size, furnished with a nictitating membrane; gape of mouth very large; lower jaw shorter than the upper; the middle of the upper jaw deeply emarginate; back slightly arched in front of the dorsal fin.

The dorsal fin commences upon the anterior half of the body; it is nearly as long again as high, and is emarginated above; at its base is a membranous prolongation or sheath, by which it is almost entirely covered when unexpanded. The first three rays of this fin are simple; the first articulated rays are higher than the remainder, the most posterior higher than the eight or nine preceding.

The pectorals are situated just beneath the posterior inferior angle of the operculum; the first three rays are the longest; the first ray is simple. Outside of this fin is an axillary plate more than two-thirds the length of the fin; a broad scaly shield at the base of the pectorals covers a portion of the inferior edge.

The ventrals are very small and fan-shaped, their rays are multifid; on each side of these fins is an axillary plate.

The anal fin is shorter than the dorsal, low and slightly emarginated above; its anterior rays are highest; the first ray is simple; it is sheathed at its base like the dorsal.