60 
THE BOOK OF FISHES 
yielding as high as 150,000 eggs 
a season. The roe of no fish is 
more delicious than that of the 
Shad, and a planked Shad gar¬ 
nished with roe and bacon is as 
much a delight in the Nation’s 
Capital in 1923 as it was in the 
days of Mt. Vernon and Mar¬ 
shall Hall, when the Father of 
his Country and the Laird of 
Marshall Hall were friends. 
The Shad sometimes attains 
a length of more than 2 feet 
and a weight of 14 pounds, but 
the average weight has been 
falling as the decades have 
come and gone, until now it 
is probably under 4 pounds. 
Photograph by Christian W. Feigenspan 
TOWING AN 800 POUND TUNA TO PORT 
until the water falls below 60 degrees in the autumn, 
and then go out to sea and are not seen again until 
they enter the rivers to spawn, which is believed 
to be when they are three or four years old. The 
spawning Shad like to find water above 60 degrees, 
and go up the rivers, but the half-grown ones, 
preferring cooler water, stay behind. In 1882 there 
was a very late spring, the water not reaching 60 
degrees until after spawning time. It was noted 
that the half-grown accompanied their elders to 
the spawning grounds that year. 
During the spawning season the mature Shads 
seem to take no food at all. Their young, after 
hatching, feed on small crustaceans and insect 
larvjE until they go out to sea. The fact that the 
adults will rise to a skillfully placed fly at times 
indicates that their abstinence is due more to their 
impulse to hasten to spawn than to their lack of 
desire for food. They are a very prolific fish. 
ALEWIFE (Pomolobus 
pseudoharengus) 
{For illustration see Color Plate^ 
page 47) 
The Alewife is a species of 
Herring abundant in North 
Atlantic waters, possessing 
many vernacular names. In 
some places it is known as the 
Branch Herring, in other local¬ 
ities as the Blear-eyed Herring, 
and elsewhere as the Wall-eyed 
Herring and the Gaspereau. It 
is found on our Atlantic coast 
from the Carolinas northward, 
in Lake Ontario, and in some of 
the small New York lakes tribu¬ 
tary to the St. Lawrence. Like 
the Shad, it goes up into the 
rivers to spawn, preceding that 
fish by two to three weeks. 
Those Alewives that have be¬ 
come land-locked in fresh water 
are greatly dwarfed in size. In 
Lake Ontario many millions die 
every summer. 
Another species, so closely re¬ 
lated that for a long time it was 
not differentiated from the 
Branch Herring, is Pomolobus 
cestivalis^ known in New Eng¬ 
land as the Summer Herring 
and in other localities by such 
names as Glut Herring, School 
Herring, Blueback, May Herring, Kyack, and 
Blackbelly. 
It is found from St. Johns River, Florida, along 
the entire Atlantic coast of the United States and 
the British Maritime provinces. The great centers 
of abundance are Albemarle Sound and Chesapeake 
Bay, where it is known as the Glut Herring, this 
term having reference to its abundance, which 
frequently leads to a glutted market. 
The circumstances under which the two species 
were differentiated form a tribute to the keen- 
eyedness of Potomac fishermen. The attention of 
the zoologists of what was then the Fish Com¬ 
mission was first called to the probable existence 
of the two species by the persistent opinions of 
the fishermen of the Potomac, who recognized two 
forms, differing somewhat both in habits and in 
appearance. These two forms they called respec¬ 
tively the Branch Herring and the Glut Herring. 
