Part 1

THE RUN

The Run

JOHN HAY

Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York 1959

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 59-11598

Copyright © 1959 by John Hay All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America First Edition

To my father and mother: Clarence Leonard Hay and Alice Appleton Hay

FOREWORD

This book mirrors an attempt to go farther afield, from one man’s center. Its writing represented a kind of migration in itself. We all undertake them, whether we like it or not, near or far. To follow on the track of fish, birds, or any other animals, might be both discovery and repetition, because it might mean to go exhaustively into the nature of being alive. The alewives helped to open the world for me, although the outcome of their circling was always beyond knowing.

Above all this book is about one race which has an equal status with us in the great motions of this planet. Men may be highest, or so men say, but they cannot be complete without granting equal dignity to the unsurpassed uniqueness of other forms of life. One ought to be able to say: “Here is a life not mine. I am enriched.”

Not a great deal has been written specifically about alewives, but the three published works I found most useful as an introduction were: Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, by Bigelow and Schroeder, published by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service; A Report on the Alewife Fisheries of Massachusetts, by David Belding, published by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation in 1921; and Factors Influencing the Migration of Anadromous Fishes, by Gerald Collins, Fishery Bulletin No. 73 of the Fish and Wildlife Service. I also received some helpful information from the Fisheries Research Board of Canada; and the Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries of the State of Maine, as well as its Department of Inland Fisheries and Game. Maine has been undertaking an important research and educational program with a view to rehabilitating the alewife fisheries.

I am greatly indebted to Hal Turner of Woods Hole, Dr. David Belding of Welfleet, and John Burns of the Massachusetts Department of Natural Resources, Division of Marine Fisheries, for answering my questions so readily and courteously; and of course, much thanks to Harry Alexander. He guards a good run.

CONTENTS

Foreword 5

I Waiting Weather 9

II Arrival 19

III Dried Fish: an Informal History 27

IV The Reproductive Urge 45

V The Nature of an Alewife 53

VI Puzzles and Speculations 63

VII Port of Entry 75

VIII The Common Night 83

IX The Hunt 89

X Transition: Salt and Fresh 99

XI Up the Valley 111

XII The Imperfect Ladder 121

XIII Persistence 129

XIV Spawning: the Dance 141