THE SEA FISHERIES OF EASTERN NORTH AMERICA. tip | 
coast at different times, or its attractiveness to cther fish. Wherever 
it is met with, at different seasons of the year, from Florida to Penob- 
scot Bay, itis always in request for bait. It is, however, only in the 
northern part of the United States that it is “slivered” and put up in 
large quantities either in ice or in salt and carried on distant voyages 
for the purpose of catching cod or mackerel. There is a peculiar 
toughness of the flesh and rankness of flavor which seem to constitute 
an appetizing attraction, not to be resisted by fishes generally, and the 
possessor of menhaden bait will be able to entice mackerel and cod, 
striped bass, sea bass, and other fishes, when a fellow-fisherman near 
by finds other bait valueless in comparison. 
The earliest appearance of schools of menhaden off the coast of the 
Middle States is the signal for securing a quantity for the cod fishing 
banks; and until their disappearance from the North they are in con- 
stant request, this application of the fish, of course, being entirely inde- 
pendent of its use in the preparation of oil and guano. 
(2) Alewives.—The two species of alewives, taken together, have a 
still greater range than the menhaden, being found from Florida to the 
- coast of Labrador, and are, if anything, more abundant in the Middle 
and Southern States than at points farther north. They enter the 
mouths of all the rivers from the sea in vast schools, beginning in the 
early spring in each latitude, and can be taken for a few weeks in any 
quantity. They can be obtained as early as January in the Saint John’s 
River, Florida, and in March or April in the Potomac, and would, un- 
doubtedly, if other fish were unprocurable, be used for the spring cod 
fishery, serving a very excellent purpose in this respect. It is probable 
that the numerous schools of adult fish, coming in from the depths of 
the ocean to the shores in the spring, and of the young that pass out 
seaward in the autumn draw the larger sea fish into the vicinity of the 
land, and there can be.no reasonable question that the great decrease 
in numbers of the latter, within the last fifty or one hundred years, has 
been caused, in large part, by human agencies, which have rendered it 
necessary to change the location of the fishing-grounds and to greatly 
limit the capture in ordinary boats of cod, haddock, hake, and the like 
in the bays and on the shores of New England, which was formerly so 
extensive and profitable. 
As will be shown elsewhere, it is entirely within the power of man to 
restore, in a great measure, the previous abundance and greatly to im- 
prove the general fisheries of the coast. 
The attractions of the young shad and salmon are doubtless to be 
added to those of the alewife and herring in drawing the larger fish 
towards the shore, but they are of less moment in this respect in view 
of their inferior abundance. 
(3) Sea Herring—Nextto themenhaden, and indeed inadvance of itin 
some parts of British North America, is to be mentioned the sea herring, 
which is to be found in one locality or another throughout the entire 
