FISHES OF OUR NORTH ATLANTIC SEABOARD 
61 
The first announcement of the discovery of the 
existence of two species and the definition of their 
respective characteristics was published in a report 
of the Virginia Fish Commission for 1879. Goode 
remarks that, although the coast fishermen of 
Massachusetts and Maine claim to distinguish 
between the Alewives and the Bluebacks, their 
judgment is by no means infallible, since, when he 
had finished sorting them out into two piles, the 
fishes which they distinguished under these names 
were not at all accurately classified. 
Like the Shad, both the Branch Herring and the 
Glut Herring are anadromous in habits. The dates 
of their first appearance in any given river closely 
agree with the movements of the Shad. The 
Branch Herring usually precedes the Shad by a 
fortnight or so and the Glut Herring comes about 
the middle of the Shad season. 
Little is known of the food of the river Alewives 
and of their salt-water habitat, although it is 
believed that they, like the Shad, feed largely on 
living crustaceans. In the rivers they seem to 
eat very little. 
They spawn after entering fresh water—the 
Branch Herring when the temperature has reached 
55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit and the Glut Herring 
when it attains 70 to 75 degrees. 
The late Professor Baird regretted the absence 
of effort to restore the Alewife to its primitive 
abundance, and declared in one of his reports to 
Congress that the Alewife is in many respects 
superior in commercial and economic value to the 
Herring. He noted that it is a much larger and 
sweeter fish than the Herring, being more like the 
Shad. He attributed the diminution of the Ale¬ 
wife supply to the erection of dams and other 
barriers, and expressed the belief that the gradual 
wearing down of the Cod, Haddock, and Hake 
fisheries along the American coast is due more to 
the diminution of the Alewife supply than to any 
falling off in the number of sea Herring as food for 
these fishes. 
HERRING (Clupea harengus) 
{For illustration see Color Plate^ 47 ) 
The Herring family includes not only the Her¬ 
rings, but also the Sardines, the Alewives, the 
Shads, and the Menhadens. 
Distributed throughout the entire North Atlantic 
Ocean, the Herring, Clupea harengus^ is probably 
the most important food fish in the world.^ 
With so many other species in competition, the 
Herring has never attained the popularity on 
American dinner tables that it has on those of 
Europe, where it forms a staple diet for millions; 
but even in our waters it is widely taken north of 
Cape Cod. Most of the fish are sold fresh, either 
for human food or Cod bait. Immense quantities 
of the young ones are packed and sold as Sardines. 
Years ago Professor Huxley estimated that three 
billion Herring were being caught annually. With 
the growth of the fishing industry in European 
waters, it has been estirnated that the annual 
catch now exceeds ten billion. A single shoal 
sometimes covers six square miles and is estimated 
to contain at least half as many Herring as the 
whole world catches in a year. Many such shoals 
are known to exist. , 
The Herring, unlike most fishes, is particularly 
fine-flavored at spawning time, and the fisheries 
are carried on busily during that season. Usually 
the Herring is taken with gill nets anchored below 
the surface of the waters, in which so many are 
sometimes enmeshed as to sink the buoys. Other 
forms of taking it are by means of weirs and torch¬ 
ing. The latter is particularly resorted to when 
cold weather sets in. A torch is set in the bow of 
the boat. The fish rise to the surface as the vessel 
glides swiftly along, and are scooped in without 
difficulty. 
The food of the Herring consists principally of 
“red feed” and Shrimp. They are in turn preyed 
on by a list of enemies as long as the moral law, 
ranging from finback whales, porpoises, and seals to 
Cod, Dogfish, and Squids. 
When schools of enemy fish attack the Herring 
the sea gulls are always on the job to gather up the 
scraps of the fray. 
The life history of the Herring has never been 
completely worked out. The facts known indicate 
that it lives in deep water off the coasts, coming 
inshore to spawn. There seems to be a number 
of distinct races, differing as to size, spawning 
time, and various other qualities and traits, each 
race swimming in a separate school and having 
its own particular time and ground for spawning. 
The number of eggs laid by a female ranges from 
10,000 to 50,000, it is said. 
TAUTOG (Tautoga onitis) 
{For illustration see Color Plate^ p(igc 4 ^) 
The Tautog is a species of the Wrasse family, 
stockily built, with a range from New Brunswick 
to the Carolinas. North of New York it is called 
the Tautog, while New York knows it as the Black- 
fish. Farther south it is called the Oyster Fish. 
The average weight is about three pounds, though 
occasionally one is taken weighing as much as 22 
pounds. It has hard scales, a hard mouth, and a 
slipperiness that is eel-like. 
The Tautog’s food consists mainly of hard- 
shelled Mollusks, Squids, Scallops, Crabs, Barnacles, 
and Sand Darters. It eats them, shells and all, 
and then regurgitates the indigestible parts. 
Close relatives of Tautoga onitis are El Capitan, 
or the Hogfish, of Florida waters and the Fatheads 
or Redfishes of the southern California coast. 
All of the Tautogs belong to the Wrasse family, 
Labridce, which is one of the largest known, includ¬ 
ing some 450 species, divided into about 60 genera. 
BUTTER-FISH (Poronotus triacanthus) 
{For illustration see Color Plate^ p^g^ 49 ) 
The Butter-fishes form a large group of small 
fishes, many famous for the fine quality of their 
flesh. Poronotus triacanthus is known as the Dollar- 
fish in Maine, the Butter-fish in Massachusetts and 
Norfolk, the Pumpkin Seed in Connecticut. It is a 
summer visitor, appearing and disappearing with 
the Mackerel. It has the habit of accompanying, 
in groups of ten or twelve, the Sun-squall Jelly¬ 
fishes in the inshore waters of the Middle Atlantic, 
seeming to seek shelter from its enemies under the 
Sun-squall’s disks, or possibly finding there a diet 
of the soft-bodied invertebrates that are constantly 
becoming entangled in the tentacles of the Jelly¬ 
fish. But its position is not always a safe one, 
since it sometimes is lassoed in these same tentacles 
and eaten by its host. 
The Harvest Fish {Peprilus paru), which ranges 
from Cape Cod to Brazil, but is especially abun¬ 
dant off the Virginia capes, is another member of 
