FISHES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 59 



great difficulty to fishermen, and its periodical mortality is a serious 
menace to the health of people living in the vicinity. The belief is that 
the fish were unintentionally introduced with the shad. In Pennsylva- 
nia the branch alewife occurs in the Delaware and the Susquehanna in 
great numbers in early spring. 
Size.—This alewife seldom exceeds one foot in length, the average 
market examples being about ten inches. The weight of the largest is 
about one-half pound, and the average weight is about five or six 
ounces. 
Habits.—The fish enter the rivers earlier than the shad and return to 
the sea, or to estuaries adjacent to the river mouths at some undeter- 
mined date in the fall. During the summer months, enormous schools 
of full grown, but sexually immature alewives migrate along the coast, 
feeding upon small crustaceans, and themselves furnishing food for blue- 
fish, sharks, porpoises and other predaceous animals; but none of them 
are known to enter fresh waters. In the rivers the alewives appear to 
eat nothing, but they can be captured with small artificial flies of various 
colors. Their eggs are somewhat adhesive and number from sixty thou- 
sand to one hundred thousand to the individual. They are deposited 
in shoal water; spawning begins when the river water is at 55 to 60 de- 
grees Fahrenheit. The period of hatching is not definitely known, but 
is believed to exceed four days. 
Growth.—During the spring and summer the young grow to a length 
of two or three inches; after their departure from the streams nothing 
is known of their progress, but it is believed that they reach maturity 
in four years. We have no means of learning the age of the immature 
fish seen in great schools off shore, and thus far the rate of growth is 
unsettled. 
Uses and capture.—The branch alewife, although full of small bones, 
is a very valuable food fish, and is consumed in the fresh condition as 
well as dry salted, pickled and smoked. The fry can be reared in ponds 
by placing adults in the waters to be stocked a little before their spawn- 
ing season, and they make excellent food for bass, rock fish, trout, sal- 
mon and other choice fishes. The proper utilization of the immense 
over-supply of these fish in Lake Ontario has become a serious economic 
problem. Seines, gill-nets, traps and pounds are used in the capture of 
alewives, and anglers often take them in large numbers with artificial 
flies. 
79. Clupea chrysochloris Rarrnesqve. 
The Golden Shad. 
This species has a few strong and distinct teeth in the jaws, the lower jaw strongly 
projecting, the caudal peduncle stout and the belly strongly serrated. In shape the 
body resembles that of the sea herring; it is compressed, rather low, its depth 
slightly more than one-fourth of the total length without caudal and about equal to 
the length of the head. The eye is large, nearly one-fourth length of head ; the 
