THE HERRING AND ITS A HIES. ^gj 



than in that of the Shad, since with the former, owing to its peculiar 

 spawning habits, the eggs stand a better chance of hatching out, and very 

 slight protection of the fish ihiring spawning season will be sufficient to 

 keep up the supply." 



Prof. IJaird, in his set:ond report as Commissioner of Fisheries, spoke 

 as follows upon the uses and im]:)ortance of this fish : 



" I am inclined to think, for various reasons, that too little has been 

 done in our waters toward the restoration to their primitive abundance of 

 the Alewife. 



" The Alewife in many respects is superior, in commercial and econo- 

 mical value, to the Herring, being a much larger and sweeter fish, and 

 more like the true Shad in this respect. Of all American fish none are so 

 easily propagated as the Alewife, and waters from which it has been driven 

 by the erection of impassable dams can be fully restocked in the course of 

 a few years, simply by transporting a sufficient number of the mature fish 

 taken at the mouth of the stream to a point above the dams, or placing 

 them in ponds or lakes. Here they will s])awn and return to the sea after 

 a short interval, making their way over dams which carry any flow. The 

 young Alewives, after a season, descend and return, if not prevented, at 

 the end of their period of immaturity, to the place where they were spawned. 



"In addition to the value of the Alewife as an article of food, it is of 

 much service in ponds and rivers as nutriment for trout, salmon and other 

 valuable fishes. The young derive their sustenance from minute crusta- 

 ceans and other objects too diminutive for the larger fish, and in their great 

 abundance are greedily devoured by the other species around them. In 

 waters inhabited by both pickerel and trout these fish find in the young 

 Alewives sufficient food to prevent their i)reying upon each other. They 

 are also, for the same reason, serviceable in i)onds containing black bass. 



"As a cheap and very abundant food for other fishes, the young Alewives 

 can be placed in waters that have no connection with the sea by merely 

 transferring from any convenient locality a sufficient number of the living 

 mature parents, taken at the approach of the spawning season ; they will 

 remain for several months, and indeed can often be easdy penned up by 

 a suitable dam and kept throughout the year. 



" It is in another still more important connection that we should con- 

 sider the Alewife. It is well known that within the last thirty or forty 

 years the fisheries of cod, haddock and hake along our coast have measur- 

 ably diminished, and in some places ceased entirely. Enough may be 

 taken for local consumption, but localities which formerly furnished the 

 material for an extensive commerce in dried fish have been entirely 

 abandoned. Various causes have been assigned for this condition of 

 things, and among others the alleged diminution of the sea Herring. 

 After a careful consideration of the subject, however, I am strongly in- 



