244 Modern Pishcidiure in Fresh and Salt WateV. 



are called "herrin" on the Hudson River, but the tru<* 

 herring, clupea harengus, does not enter fresh water. 

 We have the "branch herring/' c. pseudoharengus, and 

 the "glut herring/' c. astivalis, both of value. They are 

 bony, but are eaten fresh and salted in great numbers 

 by people living on the rivers. They spawn at night in 

 creeks and bayous, among the flotsam, and make a 

 great racket in doing it. I have taken the eggs on 

 dried eel-grass and hatched them in floating boxes. It 

 was the milt of one of these fishes that was used on 

 shad eggs when no male shad were at hand. They 

 run up the Hudson to Albany, and I have seen them by 

 the thousand in a pool below the dam of the South Side 

 Sportsman's Club, on the south side of Long Island, 

 and intended to bring them to the little smelt stream 

 at Cold Spring Harbor. They are not first-class fish, 

 but are good food, and that is what poor people want. 

 Like the shad, they get their living in salt-water, and, 

 therefore, do not compete with the fresh-water species. 

 As food for people who want a cheap food this species 

 should be cultivated where there are facilities for its 

 breeding. Below Albany, N. Y., they come soon after 

 the ice goes out and at first retail readily at 30 to 50 

 cents per dozen. A month later, when they are plenty 

 and are about to spawn, or have spawned, the price 

 drops to 10 cents per dozen, and the farmers drive into 

 the river where the shad fishermen are hauling seines 

 and take home wagon loads for salting, buying them 

 for a few cents per bushel. At least that was the rule 

 when I was hatching shad on the Hudson, at Castleton, 

 in 1874, and later. 



