34 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The size of alewives taken for the market is quite uniform. The 

 average weight is two-fifths or one-third of a pound, the two species 

 being similar in this respect. Examples weighing as much as half a 

 pound are rare. 



As food-fishes, the alewives are generally regarded as superior to the 

 sea herring, being larger and of better flavor, but they are decidedly 

 inferior to the shad in food value. There is very little difference in the 

 edible qualities of the two species, although the branch herring has 

 the reputation of being somewhat better. Many reach the market in 

 a fresh condition, but perhaps the largest quantities are salted or 

 smoked, smoking being a favorite method of preparation in New Eng- 

 land. For use as bait in the line fisheries for cod, haddock, and other 

 ground fish, alewives are considered highly satisfactory, and large 

 numbers are thus utilized in Maine and Massachusetts. The abund- 

 ance and cheapness of these fish make them of almost incalculable 

 importance in the coast sections, and in 1896 nearly 150,000,000 were 

 sold by fishermen of 14 States for food and bait, besides which large 

 quantities were given away at the fishing shores. The average price 

 received by the fishermen was one-third of a cent per fish. 



These fishes are known by a large number of names along different 

 parts of the coast. In the New England States the name alewife is in 

 general use, while in the Middle and South Atlantic States "herring" 

 is the name most frequently heard. The branch herring is known as 

 spring herring, branch alewife, gaspereau, wall-eyed herring, hardhead, 

 alewife, ellwife, and ellwhop. Among the names for the glut herring are 

 blueback. May herring, school herring, summer herring, blackbelly, 

 English herring, kyack, cat-thrasher, and sawbelly. 



THE ALEWIFE FISHERIES CONSIDERED BY STATES. 



Alewives are caught in much larger numbers than any other fishes 

 entering the fresh waters of the United States, and among all the fishes 

 of American waters are surpassed in this resi)ect only by two species, the 

 sea herring {Glupca harengus) and the menhaden {Brevoortia tyrannus). 

 They are taken for commercial purposes in every seaboard State from 

 Maine to Florida, except Georgia, in which an alewife fishery was 

 formerly carried on. Maryland, Nortti Carolina, and Virginia are the 

 leading alewife States, although important fisheries also exist in Maine, 

 Ehode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey. 



The fishing is prosecuted with pound nets, trap nets, weirs, seines, gill 

 nets, fykes, and dip nets ; the largest catch is with pound nets and seines. 

 In most States special apparatus is employed, but far the larger part 

 of the yield is obtained with apparatus set primarily for other fishes. 



In 1800, according to the investigations of the United States Fish 

 Commission,* over 2,500 persons were engaged in the alewife fisheries, 

 besides many thousand people who operated apparatus in which ale- 

 wives constituted an important j^art of the catch. Over 800 people used 



See Report U. S. Fish Comuiissiou 1897, pp. cxxv-cxxx. 



