104 



FISHERY BULLETIN OF THE FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE 



at Woods Hole. However, they also take small 

 fish, such as herring, eels, laun.ce, cunners, and 

 their own species, as well as fish eggs. Unlike 

 herring, alewives often contain diatoms even when 

 adult. Alewives fast when they are running up- 

 stream to spawn, but when the spent fish reach 

 brackish water on their return they feed ravenously 

 on the shrimp that abound in the tidal estuaries and 

 which they can be seen pursuing. We have often 

 hooked alewives on an artificial fly at such times. 



Movements at sea. — The alewife is as gregarious 

 as the herring, fish of a size congregating in schools 

 of thousands of individuals (we find record of 

 40,000 fish caught in one seine haul in Boston 

 Harbor) and apparently a given school holds 

 together during most of its sojourn in salt water. 

 But they are sometimes caught mixed with men- 

 haden, or with herring. Alewives, immature and 

 adult, are often picked up in abundance in weirs 

 here and there along the coast, 72 and it is likely 

 that the majority remain in the general vicnity of 

 the fresh water influence of the stream-mouths 

 and estuaries from which they have emerged, to 

 judge from the success of attempts to strengthen 

 or restore the runs of alewives in various streams, 

 mentioned above. But it is certain that some of 

 them wander far afield, for catches of up to 3,000 

 to 4,000 pounds per haul were made by otter 

 trawlers some 80 miles offshore, off Emerald 

 Bank, Nova Scotia (lat. about 43° 15' N., long, 

 about 63° W.) at 60 to 80 fathoms, in March 

 1936. 73 



Odd alewives were reported from Georges Bank 

 and the South Channel in March, June, August, 

 and November of 1913. Some (up to 78 per 

 haul) were trawled by Albatross III about 25 to 60 

 miles out off southern New England in May 1950; 

 also 18 adults, 10 to 11 inches long, 70 odd miles 

 off Barnegat, N. J., on March 5, 1931 ; and we saw 

 60 alewives trawled at the 25-fathom line off 

 Marthas Vineyard 7i in late June, 1951 by the 

 Eugene H. Where these wanderers come to shore 

 to spawn, if they succeed in doing so at all, is an 

 interesting question. 



It seems likely from various lines of evidence 

 that alewives tend to keep near the surface for 

 their first year or so in salt water, and while they 



« Huntsman (Contr. Canad. Biol., [1921] 1922, p. 58) reports its young at 

 Campobello Island, Bay of Fundy, in December and March. 



*• Reported by Vladykov, Copeia, 1936, No. 3, p. 168. One vessel brought 

 in about 10,000 pounds. 



'< At lat. 40° 68' N.; long. 70° 32* W. 



are inshore when older. But practically nothing 

 is known as to the depths to which they may 

 descend if (or when) they move offshore, there 

 being no assurance that those taken by trawlers 

 were not picked up, while the trawls were being 

 lowered or hauled up again. 



General range. — Gulf of St. Lawrence and north- 

 ern Nova Scotia south to North Carolina, running 

 up into fresh water to spawn; landlocked races 

 also exist in Lake Ontario, in the Finger Lakes of 

 New York, and in certain other fresh-water lakes. 7 ' 



Occurrence in the Gulj of Maine. — When the 

 white man crossed the Atlantic probably there 

 was no stream from Cape Sable to Cape Cod but 

 saw its annual run of alewives unless they were 

 barred by impassable falls near the mouth. 



And while its numbers have declined during the 

 past two centuries and its range has been restricted, 

 both by actual extirpation from certain streams by 

 overfishing, by the pollution of the river waters by 

 manufacturing wastes, and by the erection of dams 

 that it cannot pass, the alewife is a familiar fish 

 still, all along around our coast 78 and yields an 

 abundant catch in many of our streams. Ale- 

 wives are taken commonly about Yarmouth, Nova 

 Scotia; in the Annapolis Basin; in Minas Channel; 

 and farther still, up the Bay. Alewives still run 

 in most of the streams tributary to the Bay of 

 Fundy, many in the St. John. A few are taken in 

 the weirs in Passamaquoddy Bay ; while young ones 

 have been taken around Campobello Island; as 

 deep as 50 fathoms. They enter the large river 

 systems all along the coasts of Maine and New 

 Hampshire, likewise many small streams, the re- 

 quirements being that these shall lead to ponds or 

 have deadwaters of sufficient extent along their 

 courses, and no dams or falls that the alewives 

 can not surmount. At Boothbay Harbor, for in- 

 stance, a considerable number of alewives annually 

 run, or did run, up to spawn in Campbell's Pond, 

 a small body of water that is dammed off from the 

 harbor, and reached by a fishway only 15 feet long. 

 This is the shortest alewife stream of which we 

 know. 



In 1896, when the alewife fishery was the sub- 

 ject of inquiry by the Bureau of Fisheries, 77 catches 



'• Such a race has been reported in Cobbett Pond, Rockingham Co., N. H. 

 by Kendall (Occ. Pap. Boston Soc. Nat. Hist., vol. 7, No. 8, 1908, p. 3S) and 

 by Bailey (Biological Survey Merrimac Watershed, New Hampshire Fish 

 and Oame Dept., 1938, p. 162). 



" Belding (Ropt. Alewife Fish. Massachusetts, Mass. Dept. Conserv, 1921) 

 has given a very instructive report on the alewife in Massachusetts. 



" Smith, Rept. U. S. Comm. Fish. (1898) 1899, pp. 31-43. 



