440 Storer on the 
At Watertown, the average quantity of alewives 
for the last ten years, is 700 barrels. They are first 
= pickled, then salted and barrelled, and sent to the 
West India Islands. They sell for from $1.50 to 
$2.00 per barrel. At Taunton, which for years was 
so celebrated for its fishery, the alewives are gradu- 
ally lessening. There are two or more dams across 
the Taunton “Great River,” so called, which im- 
pedes their progress very much ; and on the “ Little 
River,” where many dams and factories have been 
erected, and where, twenty years ago thousands 
were taken, not one now is to be seen. 'T'wenty-five 
years since they were taken in such abundance at 
Taunton, that they sold for 20 cents per hundred, 
and a great business was carried on in barrelling 
and shipping them to the West India market. At 
the present time, when first taken, they sell for 100 
cents per hundred, and, as the season advances, di- 
minish gradually in price to 50 cents. Most of the 
fish are disposed of at the seines, (fresh,) and cured 
by the purchasers. In the Merrimack river too, 
they have been diminishing in number for the last 
five or ten years; the fishermen think this is because 
the small ponds emptying into, the river have been 
dammed up. A pond in Manchester and Chester was 
formerly famous for its alewives. 
- The following characters are presented by a spe- 
cimen of this species : Color on the back bluish pur- 
ple; sides a light cupreous; beneath silvery; on the 
sides, four or five, and sometimes even more, indis- 
tinet greenish lines passing from the head to the 
tail; these lines are quite obvious when looked at 
