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Alewife; Branch Herring
This is known also as wall-eyed herring, big-eyed herring, spring herring, blear-eyed herring, ellwife, Gaspereau, and doubtless by many other names. It is found on our Atlantic coast from the Carolinas northward and is very abundant. It enters fresh-water streams to spawn and the run usually precedes that of the shad by 2 or 3 weeks. It is found also in certain small lakes in New York tributary to the St. Lawrence and in Lake Ontario where it is exceedingly abundant. It seems to be landlocked in these lakes and is greatly in size. In Lake Ontario myriads die every year in early summer.
Head 4 2/3; depth 3 1/8; eye 3 1/2; D. 16; A. 19; scales 50; scutes 21+14; gillrakers 30 to 40 below the angle. Body rather deep and compressed; head short, nearly as deep as long; maxillary reaching posterior margin of pupil; lower jaw somewhat projecting, the upper emarginate; eye large; gillrakers long, but shorter and stouter than in the shad; lower lobe of caudal the longer. Colour, bluish above, sides silvery; indistinct dark stripes along the rows of scales; a blackish spot behind opercle; peritoneum pale.