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diff --git a/77074-h/77074-h.htm b/77074-h/77074-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9408092 --- /dev/null +++ b/77074-h/77074-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3785 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + The Run | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + h1,h2,h3 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + + +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; +} +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse; } +table.autotable td, +table.autotable th { padding: 0.25em; } + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right;} + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.pagenum { + + position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal; + text-indent: 0; +} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} +img.w100 {width: 100%;} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + + + +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + +.illowp40 {width: 40%;} +.illowp41 {width: 41%;} +.illowp47 {width: 47%;} +.illowp50 {width: 50%;} + + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77074 ***</div> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center">THE RUN</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<figure class="figcenter illowp47" id="i000_frontflyleaf" style="max-width: 166em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i000_frontflyleaf.jpg" alt="Map of mill area"> +</figure> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<figure class="figcenter illowp47" id="i999_rearflyleaf" style="max-width: 166em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i999_rearflyleaf.jpg" alt="Map of watershed"> +</figure> +</div> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp40" id="i000_frontis" style="max-width: 162.75em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i000_frontis.jpg" alt="Gulls above the beach"> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h1>The Run</h1> + +<h3>JOHN HAY</h3> +<br> +<p class="center"> +Doubleday & Company, Inc.<br> +Garden City, New York<br> +1959<br> +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center"> +<i>Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 59-11598</i><br> +<br> +<i>Copyright © 1959 by John Hay</i><br> +<i>All Rights Reserved</i><br> +<i>Printed in the United States of America</i><br> +<i>First Edition</i><br> +</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pgs 3-4]</span></p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center"> +To my father and mother:<br> +Clarence Leonard Hay<br> +and<br> +Alice Appleton Hay<br> +</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOREWORD">FOREWORD</h2> +</div> + + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.”</p> + +<p>Not a great deal has been written specifically about alewives, but the +three published works I found most useful as an introduction were: +<cite>Fishes of the Gulf of Maine</cite>, by Bigelow and Schroeder, +published by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service; <cite>A Report on +the Alewife Fisheries of Massachusetts</cite>, by David Belding,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span> +published by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation in 1921; and +<cite>Factors Influencing the Migration of Anadromous Fishes</cite>, +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pgs 7-8]</span></p> + +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2> +</div> + + + + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdr"> </td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#FOREWORD">Foreword</a></td> +<td class="tdr">5</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">I</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#I">Waiting Weather</a></td> +<td class="tdr">9</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">II</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#II">Arrival</a></td> +<td class="tdr">19</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">III</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#III">Dried Fish: an Informal History</a></td> +<td class="tdr">27</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IV</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#IV">The Reproductive Urge</a></td> +<td class="tdr">45</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">V</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#V">The Nature of an Alewife</a></td> +<td class="tdr">53</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VI</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#VI">Puzzles and Speculations</a></td> +<td class="tdr">63</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VII</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#VII">Port of Entry</a></td> +<td class="tdr">75</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">VIII</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#VIII">The Common Night</a></td> +<td class="tdr">83</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">IX</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#IX">The Hunt</a></td> +<td class="tdr">89</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">X</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#X">Transition: Salt and Fresh</a></td> +<td class="tdr">99</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XI</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#XI">Up the Valley</a></td> +<td class="tdr">111</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XII</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#XII">The Imperfect Ladder</a></td> +<td class="tdr">121</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XIII</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#XIII">Persistence</a></td> +<td class="tdr">129</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XIV</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#XIV">Spawning: the Dance</a></td> +<td class="tdr">141</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XV</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#XV">The Return</a></td> +<td class="tdr">151</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XVI</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#XVI">The Young Follow After</a></td> +<td class="tdr">161</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XVII</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#XVII">The Power of Fragility</a></td> +<td class="tdr">175</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdr">XVIII</td> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#XVIII">Going Out</a></td> +<td class="tdr">183</td> +</tr> +</table> + + + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pgs 9-10]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="I">I<br><br> +Waiting Weather</h2> +</div> + + +<p>It was in March, in comparative ignorance about their lives and habits, +that I started looking for the alewives. This is the time of year when +a few forerunners usually come in from the sea, in spite of the cold +airs and waters that still grip the narrow land of Cape Cod. I had +seen these migrant fish before, during a previous season, but from the +road, so to speak. I had never followed them as if they challenged +communication.</p> + +<p>The place I started from was the Herring Run in the town of Brewster, +part of a little migratory inland route by which the alewives travel up +from Cape Cod Bay to the inland ponds where they spawn. At the Herring +Run the waters of Stony Brook pour down from an outlet north of these +ponds—three of them, all interconnected: Walkers, Upper Mill, and +Lower Mill. The flow then goes over a one-and-a-half-mile stretch, +first over the fishway, a series of concrete ladders and resting pools +built through rocks and high land, the area of the Herring Run, then +through a valley of abandoned cranberry bogs bounded by low<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span> hills; and +finally it elbows through tidal marshes to Paine’s Creek, its mouth +on Cape Cod Bay. This little river was called Sauquatuckett by the +Indians and was subsequently known as the Setuckett River, Mill Brook, +and Winslow’s Brook. At its falling headwaters the first water mill in +this region was built, and one of the later mill buildings is still +standing—it has an old water wheel that is still in working order and +is used to grind corn as a tourist attraction. By the time the mass of +tourists arrive the alewife migration, aside from the “fry,” hatched in +the ponds and returning to salt water, has about run its course. They +can still take pictures of the old mill in July or August, but they +have probably missed a more vital antiquity.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp40" id="i048" style="max-width: 170.3125em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i048.jpg" alt="Mill"> +</figure> + +<p>The initial facts about the migration are these: each year, close +in time to the vernal equinox when the sun crosses the equator and +day and night are of equal length, this member of the herring family +begins to enter innumerable inlets and tidal estuaries down the +length of the Atlantic coast, from Newfoundland to the Carolinas. +Scientifically known as <i>Pomolobus pseudoharengus</i> (also, under an +older classification, <i>Alosa pseudoharengus</i>, along with species +of shad), the alewife is an “anadromous” fish, meaning that like the +salmon and shad, but unlike its relative the sea herring, it grows in +salt water but leaves it as a three- or four-year-old adult, to spawn +in fresh. A “catadromous” fish, like the eel, does just<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span> the opposite, +growing up in fresh water and spawning in the sea.</p> + +<p>The alewives, I learned, were due to come in from the Bay when the +temperature of the brackish water that flowed into it was warmer than +that of the salt water. In fact, a local resident had already noticed +a group of eight or ten alewives of apparently large size that had +appeared in the brook a few days before. Their arrival was a token +that the land, though still cold, was warming up more quickly than the +sea—just about the time a few male red-winged blackbirds showed up +too, in advance of housekeeping. But if some began their migration in +March, the first big run was not likely to come until the middle of +April or later, depending on how long and cold a winter it had been. +During an exceptionally cold season the alewives might not appear in +volume until the first days in May. Where were they now, and what were +they doing? Schooling somewhere offshore, and waiting to move in?</p> + +<p>I stood on the beach and the sea still looked and felt and smelled +as raw and cold as winter—iron-gray, massive, keeping its +counsels—although, as I understood it in an incomplete way, the waters +were undergoing seasonal adjustments at varying depths in the shallow +coastal areas. Spring changes would begin to take effect. Perhaps I +knew them, smelled them, on the sea wind. I was impatient. I wondered +what specific combination of length of life, biological<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</span> responses, +currents, tides, the composition of the sea water, might impel one +roving school of fish to leave the sea and start inland.</p> + +<p>March, that season of the whole air hesitating and blowing back and +forth, the circuit of the compass, especially in low-wooded seaside +lands, is a time of hesitation, preparation, and violence. It is +waiting weather.</p> + +<p>The tempo had changed—it was late in February I had felt it. The +winter fist began to unclench a little. Before another day of frost, +sleet, or wet snow, spring rain might bucket down in the evening, +or freak lightning might crack the sky. The days were gray and raw +more often than not, but when the sun shone it was sheer grace. One +night there were wands of light shuddering against great, shimmering, +flushed curtains on the sky wall over Cape Cod Bay—being the legendary +northern lights, grandly named aurora borealis. The following day was +cold, dull, and obdurate again.</p> + +<p>Then when the temperature began to ease up occasionally from the +thirties to the forties, as March went on, a surprise snowstorm came +howling in. Poles snapped; wires broke, and the resulting power +failures lasted for several days, during which some people rediscovered +fate. The radio, before communication was entirely cut, sounded off +about the inexorable as cars and trains were stopped and men died after +shoveling snow. In that whole weather always cast beyond complaint or +prediction, this storm<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</span> only represented a temporary arrest. Our primal +agent the sun still had the season’s growth in hand, more various than +fate; which is not to minimize the tragedies along the way. Some days +after the storm I found four or five male bluebirds in spring plumage +all huddled dead in the bottom of a birdhouse—a pathetic brilliance. +The entrance had probably been blocked by wet snow after they had taken +refuge there.</p> + +<p>As the growing sunlight played a steady tune, so the alewives, perhaps +less affected by local storms than we, were due to come in, if only in +small numbers. Where were they? I stopped by the Herring Run where the +brook was full of loud cold water, but empty of fish. All the same, +Harry Alexander, the alewife warden, was there, giving a display of +public confidence. He had taken up his annual stance on Stony Brook +Road, which bridges the run, and with a truculent punch of his lips +against his pipestem, he made ready for the coming season.</p> + +<p>In a world era, this is a local man. He has the cast and sense of place +about him and some of its accumulated age. I have seen it in other +men who have spent their lives in the same country environment. He is +heavy, ruddy, thickset—an old boat in a Cape port. During his tenure +on the alewives committee he seems to have developed a proprietary +attitude about the run which probably exceeds his authority, but very +few people object.</p> + +<p>He certainly makes more of the job than the small<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span> wages he gets from +the town; and in years past the alewives have had a defender in him +at Town Meeting, when discussion came up about the amount of money +allotted to the Herring Brook. From a naturalist’s point of view, he +can hardly be said to have much sentiment in him about these fish as +part of the living community. Too many of them would stink the place +up, or so he affirms. I remember him at a hearing, speaking to a public +official in this wise, “Ever see my brook? Our brook, I mean. No dirty, +stinking mess up there!”</p> + +<p>So, in his special way, he keeps the area clean, and is the herring’s +defender and interpreter. I think he likes to conceive of himself as +a kind of rascal. To those who ask him about the fish he is liable +to dispense information that is an outrage to the innocent. Two +Connecticut schoolteachers were once directed to the run, and came +away saying the alewives were often so plentiful that the Cape Codders +shingled their houses with them. (This is part of what he has called +“My fight with the public.”)</p> + +<p>So, a “Cape Cod character,” personification of an old locality ... but +I don’t think he would like me to write too well of his character. +That day as I lingered at the run he gave me a lowering look. What was +I interested in the fish for? Well, if I’d take the information from +him, we could make ourselves a pile of money by selling the story to +<cite>Collier’s</cite> magazine.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span> Did I ever hear about the Indians +shooting these fish from the trees?</p> + +<p>Facts, Harry. Facts.</p> + +<p>“Well, naow, I’ll tell you. With the shore wind blowing on the long +flats out there and the water ruffling up like that, the fish don’t +come in much. But they’ll be along. Yes-yes.”</p> + +<p>So was there nothing to do but take tentative steps and wait? The +scene, the place, the weather—an emergent weather in me perhaps—was +more compelling than that. The wind blowing, brook roaring, sun shafts +through the steely sky, all urged an opening. I walked down to the +south side of the road, by the tall lilacs, under high willows and +maple trees. Here the waters of the brook divide between the concrete +fishway and a side or “waste” stream which rejoins the other some fifty +feet farther on, dropping precipitously over rocks that foam with water +too high for the migrating fish to leap.</p> + +<p>I walked down a path at the edge of this narrow waste stream. Where the +water was running swiftly, lithely, between the high rock foundations +of the road on one side and a low dirt bank with grass hummocks on the +other, I saw the brown head of a muskrat leading across the stream not +more than twenty feet away. The sleek, dark little animal swam over +to a stone across from me and sat there eating something with quick, +legerdemain little gestures, a fast shuttling between its paws and +its whiskered face.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span> Apparently it couldn’t see me. The east wind was +blowing across us, and the fresh waters were roaring. Then it stopped +and nosed back into the stream, swimming across to a tussock not more +than twelve feet from where I stood. It plucked out, quickly, a sizable +bunch of grass and swam back with it to the same eating place and +chewed it up. Then it returned to the shallow water, swimming close +to the bottom, where I could plainly see it going easily against the +current with its two hind legs stretched out, propelling it, and the +long flat tail acting as a scull.</p> + +<p>It emerged to disappear in a few rock crevices and then came out, +its glossy, questioning head sniffing for danger before it dropped +down again. Finally it swam out of sight into the cruel brilliance of +sun-reflecting waters that ran full out, full tilt. Pools of plenty +were continually releasing and boiling as if they were the strength and +source of all motion.</p> + +<p>The muskrat’s eyes were black as rock recesses and its pelt as dark +and glistening as a mud bank. It was at home, with all its food around +it—grass, minnows, salamanders, fresh-water mussels—in an adaptation, +a closeness to the place, arrived at through both random and inevitable +forces. It knew its small world and needed no outside instruments to +set its course by. I might wonder about the next event, the coming +storms, but here was this animal swimming away as if it said, “Come on +in. The universal water’s fine.”—in a stream as yet too cold for me.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp40" id="i072" style="max-width: 152.875em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i072.jpg" alt="Muskrat"> +</figure> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pgs 19-20]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="II">II<br><br> +Arrival</h2> +</div> + + +<p>A week or so later, early in April, I finally saw my first alewife of +the season. It had the brook to itself where I caught sight of it—a +cloudy form running upcurrent—and when I went closer I could see it +probing the rippling, beating waters, with all that fish articulation +of separate fins together, fanning slightly, waving, threading, and +steering, the fixed eyes staring on, its whole body weaving with the +flow. It is a surprisingly large fish, seen for the first time in a +narrow stream. Its length may be anywhere between ten and thirteen +inches, and it has a heavy look for those who are used to sunfish and +minnows.</p> + +<p>An alewife was no novelty to me, but this one seemed to decide the +year’s direction. It started things out. I saw it for the first time, +as child or genius does who finds some whole deep image in the air, +or radiant clarity in the water. I had the feeling too that I was +looking at a professional from an old water world, a new agent of old +assurance, deserving profound respect. After all, it had been coming +back here thousands of years before me, in the migrant history of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span> its +race, and by this time must have mastered its passage. And as a natural +event, a part of the spring’s development, it seemed to announce that +bud scales on shrubs and trees would start to crack and fall away to +let the inner shoots out that unfold as leaves and feed on the sun. It +said that flies and wasps and spiders would come out of winter hiding +and sleeping, that the song sparrows would begin to sing in the willows +and viburnum bushes along the banks of Stony Brook.</p> + +<p>There is something exciting and strange about the sudden appearance of +new life in the spring, coming from another region, another climate. +The terns or plovers that appear along the shore bring an unknown +experience with them. They seem to start in or to assemble according +to some tremendous demand which is in no way restricted to seasonal +lags. They recur; they are recognizable; and yet they bring in endless +tides and vivid journeys, being a part of that remarkable projection +of nature in which a multitude of lives use their skill in navigation, +their plumage, their scales, fins, and various senses, their particular +drives toward fulfillment.</p> + +<p>Migration is universal. That which prompts animals to emerge from their +burrows, or to start moving over the ocean floor, to fly north, to +swim into brackish or fresh water from salt, or even, like a ladybird +beetle, to move a short distance from a forest floor to a meadow, must +have a world-wide energy to it, with<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span> lines of communication that +reach everywhere ahead and invite the human drive for knowledge. But +in a strict sense there are two accepted definitions of migration for +the animals. There is return migration, of which the alewives provide +an example. Fish or birds in this category travel seasonally from one +area to another, usually coming back to some home region after varying +lapses of time. Otherwise, there is emigration, in which animals leave +their home base but never come back again, lemmings and locusts being +good examples. Both definitions, I should think, can prove that home +stretches farther than we know.</p> + +<p>Why had this pioneer of an alewife, and the others that had come +before it, arrived so soon? It is possible that they had migrated up +Stony Brook before. All mature alewives—a majority seem to be four +years old—are moved by sexual development and swim inshore when the +temperature of the fresh or brackish water has turned warmer than the +salt water from whence they came. The earliest comers often appear to +be larger in size. This suggests, at least, that they may be older and +that they have spawned in that run before. The latest to come seem to +be the smallest, and therefore the youngest. Alewives, like other fish, +seem to have a tendency to keep growing, though there may be a maximum +size reached in their fifth or sixth year. The only conclusive way to +tell their age is by microscopic examination of their scales,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span> which +reflect each spawning year and its physical changes.</p> + +<p>Work done by Keith Havey on alewives in Maine shows a minimum of +alewives spawning at three years of age and the largest number in the +four- or five-year-old range. No scales were found which reflected more +than two spawnings. As to size, he gives a sampling of their length in +inches which graduates up from 11.25 inches in the three-year-old fish +to 11.80 in the four-year-olds, 12.35 in five-year-olds, and 12.80 in +the six. The female alewife, incidentally, is a little larger than the +male.</p> + +<p>Possibly then, these early alewives at Stony Brook were the oldest, +and because of that they might have been the most practiced at finding +their way. I am told that, with new fish ladders, observers have +noticed the earliest arrivals seeking and passing through them more +readily on the second year after construction than on the first, which +leads to the belief that they have been through before. Age may improve +the alewife in prowess, though it is a fish of crowds, and not one to +strike out much on its own. The “homing instinct,” still unfathomed, +but about which I will try to say more later on, brings them back to +their streams of origin with almost united force.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i024" style="max-width: 164.25em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i024.jpg" alt="Fish Swimming"> +</figure> + +<p>So my lone alewife marked the greatness it preceded, though it was +early, in early and still undecided weather. At first the sleet, +hail, flurries of wet snow came in profusion, stabbing between the +sunshine,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</span> as though nature, before making its next terms known, was +full of passionate unease. Then wings of warm rain would beat in over +the Cape, to slash and curve and follow along trees and houses, through +inland ponds, across the ridges and hollows, and the wind poured behind +in great gusts, trying, it seemed, to shake a tight world loose. +Underneath the struggling air many things waited for more chances in +the sun, but under the stars, on foggy evenings or bright days, the +singing of peepers in pools, ponds, or boggy land would swell and widen +everywhere.</p> + +<p>Then as the month kept advancing, that which came out began to stay, +and to expand, in variety, flexibility, and strength. The wheels of +the world seemed to turn more brightly. I felt a suggestion in each +changing tree, in the loosening ground, the kinetic light and air, of +new unfoldings, kaleidoscopic discoveries. The formality, and power in +the coming on of spring surprised me, as if it had never come before.</p> + +<p>More winds began to blow from the southwest, the prevailing wind during +late spring and summer. Yellow fingertips of bloom showed on the +whip-long branches of the forsythias. The temperature edged toward the +fifties, and there were deep new meetings between the moles and the +worms. One day many tree swallows began to flit and dive low around +the Herring Run. They skimmed along the surface of the water, then +sailed up again. Their bellies were as<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</span> white as a frog’s or horned +pout’s, dark wings and tails trimly cut, backs almost a tropical blue +in the light above the water, reflecting green at some angles, or a +green-blue-purple the color of mackerel. Their flight dipped with the +up and down flying insects they were chasing. When some insect, unseen +to me, spiraled straight up along the banks, a swallow would leave its +water gliding, twist suddenly, beating its wings, and almost spiral +after.</p> + +<p>That original source of energy the sun, which men might still worship +in good faith, was bringing out new facets to shine abroad. The web of +life was stretching to its light. Birds, insects, plants, and fish were +beginning to move to its changing measure; though if some days were +warm with a budding, fringing, easing expectation, others were still +raw, wet, and contracting, bringing winter back to flesh and fiber. We +kept looking for the alewives. Cars would slow up at the Herring Run. +The drivers peered down to see the curving, dark forms of a few fish +holding up against the current. Then they drove on. Or they got out, +saw nothing, and went away in disappointment. But suddenly one morning +toward the middle of April the crowd of alewives had so increased as to +cause an inescapable excitement in the vicinity. The water was thick +with fish, their fins showing on the surface. It was almost as it had +been a hundred years before when the whole population would cry out at +their coming, “The herring are running!”</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[Pgs 27-28]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="III">III<br><br> +Dried Fish: +An Informal History</h2> +</div> + + +<p>“The herring are running!” must have been a great cry once, for men, +women, and children over the whole Cape. There was a deep meaning in +this seasonal event, since the fish were a part of the local livelihood +the year around. Nowadays, so far as commerce is concerned, the +alewives lack their former importance. In Massachusetts, although they +come into a number of streams and rivers few alewives are taken for the +market. I understand that in recent years only the runs at Brewster and +Middleboro have been open for commercial use, the fishing rights having +been sold to the highest bidder.</p> + +<p>For all that, it still seems a live, high, and social morning when +you wake to the gabbling of gulls in the distance and know that the +alewives have finally arrived. The sun spreads down new warmth. There +are cool sweeps of breeze, broad runs of blue in sky and sea past the +gray and white houses, with those silver hordes starting to enter +inland veins in a bold reminder of perpetuity.</p> + +<p>This season the rights to fish the stream had been<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span> bought from the +town by a firm that wanted them for lobster bait. On the eighteenth +day of the month a big red truck had pulled alongside the seining pool +and the old mill. Three men were down in the pool, with their rubber +boots on, putting a wide net in place. It was rimmed with cork floats +and roped at the center to a hoist fixed to a small dock on the bank. A +little wire gate was closed at the stream entrance on the upper side of +the pool, so that the fish could go no farther. The run was officially +on; and until it thinned out two months ahead, the fish would be hauled +from the pool four days a week, thrown into barrels, and trucked away +to be sold as lobster bait.</p> + +<p>A sign was posted at Stony Brook, reading: “No herring may be taken +or molested in Stony Brook on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in +accordance with state law. Residents of Brewster are entitled without +charge to one dozen herring daily on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, +and Thursdays during the open season, and should obtain them from J. +B. Salvadore, Jr., who has purchased the Herring Fishery Rights for +this year, or may take them from the brook on these days if he is not +present.” It was signed by the selectmen of the town of Brewster.</p> + +<p>On the down side of the road a bunch of children were celebrating the +coming of the fish. The alewives, crowding, resting, circling, and +slipping up through the pools and falls of the fishway—their bodies a +fretted-lavender brown in the bubbling waters—were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span> now fair game for +the inland world they had come back to. Three boys were competing for +a crab net they were dipping into the water, scooping after the fish, +and as often as not heaving it up empty. One of them was professionally +pinching the belly sides of a fat, gleaming alewife to see if it was +a female and would emit some of its roe. Then he flung it back into +the water with furious energy; and it slapped hard when it hit, and he +cheered.</p> + +<p>Were they under the law, these predators? Well, this play, or hunt, +this spring jubilation had been going on for several hundred years.</p> + +<p>“Let the kids play around there, I say,” said Herring Harry. “We were +kids too. We didn’t start out old.”</p> + +<p>In barer, colder, perhaps simpler days, days when men lived closer to +their natural surroundings and were more dependent on them than they +think they are now, the alewives meant food and revenue, an abundance +returning to your own back yard. They came under the heading of useful +acquaintances. But now the roe, or fish eggs, is the only part of the +alewife that is highly considered locally. It is a very bony fish +and most people reject the idea of eating it, forgetting the days of +“good salt herring” when the children ate them on sticks like candy. +So the Brewster resident gets his allotment for the roe, to be fried +in butter. An ambitious gardener can bury the rest under his corn +plantings to serve as fertilizer, if the cats<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span> permit, though it is +still a very good way to make corn grow tall in unreceptive soil. A +hundred years ago or more, when it was done extensively, it resulted +in rich yields. I have heard that one acre set with a thousand fish +would produce three times as much corn as an acre without them. It +is a practice that we inherit from the Indians, although the Indian +agriculturist was likely to be plagued by wolves instead of cats.</p> + +<p>Cape Codders, even so comparatively short a time ago as fifty or sixty +years, would not have liked to hear this farming method belittled. +Some of them may even have regarded it with delight. I recently talked +with a man who was a boy in the 1890’s and remembers walking behind a +wagonload of “very dead” fish in a field made ready for corn. A man in +the wagon pitched out a forkful of herring into each prepared hole as +they creaked along, while another, walking behind, shoved dirt over +them and planted the seed. He can remember a relative cocking a keen +ear one night and saying, “Listen! You can hear it growing. By God, +when their feet hit that stinking mess don’t they start up and go!”</p> + +<p>Although to know them may have been to understand their worth, I find +one early writer, Marshall McDonald Douglass, in his <cite>North +America</cite>, 1740, who does not give the tribe much credit. +“Alewives,” he says, “by some of the country people are called +Herrings. They are of the Herring tribe but much larger than the true +Herring. They are a very mean,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span> dry and insipid fish. Some of them are +cured in the manner of white Herrings and sent to the sugar islands for +the slaves, but because of their bad quality they are not in request: +in some places they are used to manure the land. They are very plenty, +and come up the rivers and brooks into ponds in the spring.” None the +less, they used to be smoked or pickled in brine and shipped out in +barrels to the West Indies, and whether or not the quality was bad the +demand was enough to make the trade in them into one of great volume, +part in fact of the famous swap for molasses, later turned into New +England rum, which was so important in our early history.</p> + +<p>Before I try to defend these fish against any further imputations, I +should explain their name. “Herrin’” is the name and pronunciation on +Cape Cod. I don’t call them alewives just to defy such Cape Codders +as might be fussy about it, but to differentiate them from their more +famous cousins the sea herring, which spawn in salt water. Cape Cod +has its alewives committees, and it may be that the fish were called +alewives here before they were called herrin’.</p> + +<p>You can still read statements to the effect that the original name +“alewife” is a corruption of the Indian word “aloofe,” which meant bony +fish. In 1871 a gentleman named J. Hammond Trumbull tried to scotch +this bit of etymology by pointing out—in a government publication +on Sea Fisheries, that the Narragansett and Massachusetts Indians +called the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span> alewife and herring “Aumsu-og,” as had been noted by Roger +Williams. In any case, whichever Indianism we choose, it seems more +likely that the name stemmed from English dialect. “Allizes,” not at +all like aloofe, was one of the names applied to it in company with the +allice shad. To quote Mr. Trumbull again: “The modern English ‘allis’ +was in old French and old English ‘alouze’ or ‘aloose,’ nearer than +the modern form of the name to the Latin ‘alausa.’” The latest in this +chain of spellings is of course <i>Alosa</i>, the scientific handle now +applied to the shad, and in some texts to the alewife.</p> + +<p>To the English colonists an alewife was also an alehouse keeper. +<cite>A Dictionary of Americanisms</cite> quotes a volume printed in +1675 which said: “The alewife is like a herrin’, but it has a bigger +bellie, therefore called an alewife.” (Let that quotation be of some +comfort to the proponents of herrin’. The name has a formal heritage.) +The writer was surely not making a direct physical analogy between a +woman and a fish. The original alewife he probably has reference to +is a shad, but <i>Pomolobus pseudoharengus</i> does have a deep body +and is heavily built forward, so perhaps a comparison with a hearty +alewife of sixteenth- or seventeenth-century England would not be too +far-fetched.</p> + +<p>The poet Skelton described an alewife, Eleanor Rummying by name, who +lived in the time of Henry VIII. She brewed a “hoppy ale,” and “her +face was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span> wondrously wrinkled, lyke a rost pigges eare bristled with +here”—at which point I will let the analogy go on its merry way.</p> + +<p>The alewife has had a variety of local and common names, the kind that +indicate touch and sight, the handing on of natural meetings—the +signposts of its contacts with man and his history on the eastern +shores of this continent. It is known as “sawbelly,” for example, +referring to the fine sharp little notches or teeth on the midline +of its belly; and for the large eyes, set on each side of its small +head, it has been called “wall-eyed herring,” “big-eyed herring,” +or “blear-eyed herring.” It is also the “spring herring,” “branch +herring,” “river herring,” or “fresh-water herring.”</p> + +<p>This old New England name of alewife has its modifications in “Ellwife” +and “Ellwhop” on the Connecticut River, and there were variant +pronunciations in other regions. In the state of Rhode Island alewives +were called “buckies” and in Maine “cat-thrashers.” In Canada the name +is “Gaspereau,” sometimes “Gasparot.” The term “alewife” is uncommon +in the maritime provinces. There seem to be three Gaspereau Rivers, +two in New Brunswick and one in Nova Scotia, in addition to a town of +that name in New Brunswick, and a lake in Nova Scotia. Apparently the +place name derives from the fish, and not the other way around. In its +15th Report, for 1917, the Geographic Board of Canada says “after a +fish,”<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span> in explaining the name of the Gaspereau River. Another Canadian +term for alewife is “kyak” or “kyack,” which sounds like a derivation +from northern Indians. Mr. A. H. Leim of the Biological Station at St. +Andrews, New Brunswick, writes me that he has only heard “one or two +fishermen call them ‘kyacks’; one of these was an old poacher on the +Shubenacadie River in Nova Scotia who always used this name. I assume +the word is of Indian origin.”</p> + +<p>Finally the alewife is called “grayback,” a name that distinguishes +it from a close relative often confused with it, which is called +the “blackback,” “blueback,” or “glut herring” (<i>Pomolobus +aestivalis</i>). The blueback shows up in a late spring run, and seems +to spawn in the lower reaches of a stream, instead of migrating up to +its headwaters. It has smaller eyes than the “grayback” and as its +name indicates its back is dark blue, instead of greenish gray, but as +colors fade at death, this is no sure test. The two species of alewife +can only be told apart conclusively by dissection. The lining of the +blueback’s body cavity is black instead of pink or gray.</p> + +<p>These names are also indicative of the range of the alewife, all the +way from the Gulf of St. Lawrence to the Carolinas. In the spawning +season they come inland by way of sandy inlets, great tidal bays, +fresh-water river mouths, or creeks only a few yards wide. Most of +the streams by which they are still able to swim up have their local +history of fishing alewives,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span> either with traps, weirs, dip nets, or +even pails. In the fisheries of Maine it is known as “alewife dipping.” +This is an important “food fish,” even though it may never have +approached the sea herring in numbers, nor been as famous as the cod.</p> + +<p>If the English sailor, Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, had been ashore in +the springtime instead of on his ship when he gave the Cape its name, +it might now be called Cape Alewife.</p> + +<p>Though they are only part of a multitude of other lives that nurtured +the American past, the alewives should be given high and special +credit. William Bradford’s <cite>Of Plymouth Plantation</cite> +testifies to their vital importance in the Pilgrims’ first year. After +the <i>Mayflower</i> left in early April of 1621, Squanto, that greatly +helpful Indian, showed them “that in the middle of April they should +have store enough come up the brook by which they began to build, +and taught them how to take it, and where to get other provisions +necessary for them.” This brook ran, as it still runs, through the +town, so that the Plymouth inhabitants were lucky to have their supply +of alewives close at hand—they seemed to have depended on them +primarily for plantings, also taught them by Squanto. The fish came +in “fat and fair” and amazingly plentiful after a lean winter full of +apprehension. At first apparently each inhabitant took freely of the +fish in the brook, but this seems to have resulted in “injuring the +property of those near the place of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span> taking.” As a result the Town +Brook became town responsibility after a few years, and the fishing was +regulated. The cost of a weir was distributed among the inhabitants +and the fishing put under the charge of town officers, with fines set +for taking alewives without permission. Innumerable fish laws were +passed after that, from the Colony of Plymouth to the Commonwealth of +Massachusetts. The fish ran comparatively free for a while, but through +the progression of these laws you might watch, in town after town, the +gradual growth of human population plus human concern for a valuable +product. In 1709 a general law provides: “That no wears, hedges, +fishgarths, stakes, kiddles, or other disturbance or encumbrance shall +be set, erected or made, on or across any river, to the stopping, +obstructing, or straitning of the natural or usual course and passage +of the fish in their seasons, or spring of the year, without the +approbation and allowance first had and obtained from the general +sessions of the peace in the same county....” An Act of 1741, to +“prevent the destruction of the fish called alewives, and other fish,” +might indicate that the colonists were beginning to notice a decline +in their numbers and to be apprehensive about it, although it is hard +to judge. <cite>A History of Barnstable County</cite>, published in +1890, has this to say: “Early in the last century the supply of herring +so far exceeded the demand for fish food that the surplus was used to +fertilize the fields, and the growing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span> custom of using them in each +hill of planted corn was checked in 1718, the town fathers [of Bourne] +ordering that none should be taken in the future to ‘fish corn.’”</p> + +<p>Apparently the alewife population did start to decrease a long time +ago. Fishermen along the Merrimack River noticed a diminishing in +numbers as early as the mid-eighteenth century; and somewhat later they +thought it might be due to the number of small ponds which had been +dammed up. These ponds had access to the river and so provided spawning +grounds. Certainly the alewives, through man’s agency, began to suffer +great setbacks in the old use of their runs. Some of the first culprits +were the woolen mills, and corn or grist mills such as the one at +Brewster—they blocked up many of the runs, in spite of the fish laws. +Then a tremendous industrial expansion put cities and factories along +all big rivers and many large streams, adding more mill dams across +the runs. The resulting sewage and manufacturing wastes polluted the +waters, destroying many fish, and making some rivers completely unfit +for migration. Extensive deforestation also resulted in the drying up +of a number of streams and the lowering of water levels. The nineteenth +century was a notorious plunderer.</p> + +<p>Alewives in any large number now coincide with undeveloped areas, which +happen to be comparatively few along the Atlantic coast. As a result +of industrialization the original heavy runs were so<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span> reduced that +the only important, commercial runs are now in the southern part of +the alewife range, notably the Chesapeake, or north of Rhode Island. +Although the fish still have much less access to their ancient, natural +routes, the existing runs are probably less carelessly protected by +law. State laws put the responsibility of keeping the fishways clear +on the localities through which they run, but the state supervises +their condition, and if a run is too depleted the state can forbid the +sale of its fishing rights. Whatever may be said about their decline +in the long run, it is quite likely that state supervision has helped +to increase the alewife population during comparatively recent years. +It certainly seems to be true that the number of fish at the Brewster +run has increased since the fish ladders were built in 1945. The new +fishways made the rocky, often clogged stream easier of access, and +cut down on fish mortality as they ascended. They can, in other words, +be brought back; although there are fishermen in Maine who estimate +that the alewife population is only a third as large as it was some +fifty years ago, and there are those who say the decline has been even +greater in Massachusetts.</p> + +<p>A great many of the old alewife fisheries lost their vitality because +there was no longer any local dependence on them nor any general +call for the product. A recent article in the <cite>Maine Coast +Fishermen</cite> said this: “A few weeks ago in Wareham, Mass., the +local selectmen refused to auction off the fishing<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</span> rights, feeling +the bids were too low. An old timer of the town, who has watched these +migrations since he was a boy, recalled that the alewife rights to the +stream in question once brought as much as $12,000 a year.” In the +smaller run at Brewster, incidentally, the bid taken during the last +spawning season was $450.</p> + +<p>Control is still local. Where there are still good-sized runs, the +towns appoint alewives committees, whose members are re-elected +annually at Town Meeting. In Brewster, on a salary of some twenty-five +dollars a year, plus small wages for time spent, it is their job to +keep the Herring Run area neat; to post regulations; see that no +individual gets away with more than his allotted portion of fish; and +keep the stream free from obstruction so that the fish can proceed to +their spawning grounds, as well as into the nets of the concessionaire. +The town sells annual rights for the privilege of fishing the stream in +season, four days a week. On the other days the alewives are allowed to +go ahead and propagate their kind. The five hundred barrels or more of +fish that have been taken yearly from Stony Brook happen to have been +used recently for lobster bait.</p> + +<p>To some extent, incidentally, their use and commercial value depends on +their condition and flavor. An alewife’s flesh is best when it has been +taken directly out of salt water. The ocean flavor is progressively +lost as the fish migrates through inland streams.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</span> So they have their +highest value where the runs are located close to the sea, or tidal +rivers such as the one at Damariscotta, Maine.</p> + +<p>The West Indies trade is over, as well as the days of “good salt +herring.” The most likely place to see indications of alewife now is +on the stupendously bountiful shelves of a chain store, in the form of +a can with a picture of a cat on it. And the future of the alewife, in +human hands at least, seems to depend on a wider demand for it. It is +valued neither for sport nor edibility, but is used for cat and dog +food, fish meal, and pickled fish, with some, as at Brewster, being +taken for lobster bait. Apparently there is an innate prejudice among +some New Englanders against using a traditional food fish for other +purposes, and a belief that selling it for meal or cat food is less +profitable. Put this down to thrift, or respect for old ways, still it +stands against the fact that the alewife’s latest value comes from its +status as a processed, rather than edible, food. “Reduction” is what +they call it when the alewives are turned into fish meal, and in a +sense perhaps they have been reduced, at least in our personal esteem. +They now belong to a technical age with the rest of us.</p> + +<p>With modern methods of handling, packing, and transportation the old +fisheries may have been left behind, but it should be said that, +because of its new status in commerce, ignominious or not, the alewife +may stand a better chance. The State of Maine, for<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</span> example, has been +undertaking thorough study of the alewives in order to find out how old +runs can be brought back, or new ones created. They are a fish that +are very responsive to management. When barriers are removed and open +fishways are made, they take their opportunity.</p> + +<p>All is not well with the traditional ways, though the alewives may be +perfectly ready to go beyond them. In the old days on Cape Cod there +was hardly a seafaring man who did not take his salt herring aboard +with him, and on land, after being salted, dried in the sun, and +smoked, they were strung on sticks and sold for ten cents a stick. +There were many smokehouses on the Cape, and in the wintertime dried +fish hung on the barn rafters above the haylofts. I have a comment on +those days from Mr. Alexander: “None of your First National Stores +then,” said he. “We lived off the earth ... potatoes and smoked +herrin’. That’s why some of us old goats lived so long.”</p> + +<p>It is hard to find smoked herring these days. It is a skill that seems +to have almost gone; and I am told that there used to be a good deal of +variation in the product. Smoked fish are now easier to find in Maine +than on Cape Cod. I bought a pair recently in a small general store +in Maine at the excessive price of fifteen cents. A dried alewife was +handsomer than I had suspected, and the smell not unpleasant, although +I might not say as much for a barnful. The head and eye sockets were +encrusted with salt, and the hard<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span> thin body was colored a bronze and +smoky gold as though heat still roamed the scales. I was reminded for +some reason of a metal bowl I had once seen that came from the land of +the Incas. I peeled off the scales and chawed a toast to our ancestors.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pgs 45-46]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br><br> +The Reproductive Urge</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The fishing operation near the old grist mill was in full swing after +the twenty-third of April. The <i>Salvadore</i> crew was hauling in +their net with the aid of a winch. It was loaded with fish, enough to +fill four or five barrels. The victims were flipping and flashing with +a whirring violence, a high sound going up in the gray morning air, a +beautiful iridescence in their white-silver sides. The whole dripping +net was heavy and alive with their shivering, thrashing, and dying. +Heads butted through the mesh and gills caught, in their frantic, +vibrating despair ... and all for lobster bait, worth six dollars a +barrel.</p> + +<p>The early colonists spoke of alewives coming up their streams in +“incredible” numbers, and so it still looks, though Stony Brook, for +one, is narrow in its upper reaches, and when the fish are forced into +it they are crowded beyond all proportion. The inland stream, with +its fresh-water grasses, insects, and small fish is suddenly host to +a large and almost foreign form of life, except that they are both +closely joined to the sea.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span></p> + +<p>On the whole, it had been a rainy month. The brook below the seining +pool was roaring and foaming down. Such was the teeming crowd of +alewives trying to swim up through the ladder, through the violently +heavy flow, that there was a constant falling back, a silver slapping +and flapping over the concrete rims of the pools. Farther down, where +the waste stream tumbled over a small mountain of rocks, too high for +the fish to jump (their limit, on a vertical leap, seems to be not much +over two feet), there was a scene to force the heart. Always a certain +number of fish, dividing from those that swam the main stream toward +the ladder, would attempt the impossible at this place. Ordinarily, +when an alewife meets obstacles in its advance upcurrent it will +quickly go forward into it, then leap in short dashes over rocks and +the lip of fishways. I had seen them go up without apparent rest where +the stream falls down the inclined ladder at the pond outlet above. +They were dancing and flipping up those waters, which were rushing and +bubbling down, like kites in a fast wind.</p> + +<p>Yet here, for all their instinctive valiance, was the unsurmountable. +Now, as they had done for thousands of years, they tried and failed. +White tons of water smashed down over the rocks, but time and time +again one fish after another made a quick dash into it and almost flew, +hanging with vibrant velocity in the torrent until it was flung back. +Many were exhausted and found their way back to the main<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span> stream, +circling and swimming slowly, and a large number were smashed against +the rocks to turn belly up and die, eaten later by young eels, or +gulls and herons, as they were taken downstream by the current. Some +were wedged in the rocks and could be seen there for days as the water +gradually tore them apart until they were nothing but white shreds of +skin.</p> + +<p>A wooden bridge crosses over Stony Brook at this point. A neighbor of +mine, a mother of children, was standing there watching when I came up, +and I heard her say, “Terrible!” I guessed that she knew what she saw, +besides death and defeat. It was the drive to be, a common and terrible +sending out, to which men are also bound in helplessness.</p> + +<p>We are astonished by this fantastic drive. “What is the point? What +makes them take these suicidal chances? Why?” It is as if we were +trying to get back, or down, to an explanation in ourselves that we had +lost sight of. But somewhere in us, through this feverish, undecided +world, we still know.</p> + +<p>Are they stupid? There is no measure in the world of nature more +excellent than a fish. It may be comparatively low in the evolutionary +scale of complexity, but no animal is more finely made, or better +suited to its own medium. All the same, the unvaried blindness their +action seemed to show would sometimes strike me as hard as did their +ability in the water.</p> + +<p>Stony Brook was black with them. There was no<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span> open patch of stream bed +to be seen. And with the excessive crowding, the general procession, +so steadily insistent on its own time, was hurried up to some extent. +Their motion became almost ponderous and tense, while individual fish +leaped like dolphins, pewter- and gold-sided, over and through the dark +herd. Others circled in and out or kept pace with the rest, staring +ahead.</p> + +<p>They had a synchronized momentum of their own. If I dropped a stone in +the middle of them, they would separate at that point and then close in +to fill the gap. There could be no nullifying or breaking their united +persistence. Their onwardness, their desperate dashing against the +rocks, had its own logic—a logic which had nothing to do with hope, +reason, or choosing another alternative. No way out, in other words. +Slavery to the reproductive urge. These alewives are more dumb than +sheep. If you were to press your own sympathy hard enough, you might +feel a terrible lack of variety in them, or, paradoxically enough, of +daring. The lidless-eyed and plunging multitude seems brutally driven, +without a chance. This is “togetherness” with a terrible vengeance.</p> + +<p>Perhaps there is something here that we know too, as fellow animals, +and lose sight of. At the risk of making one of those vaguely +anthropomorphic assumptions against which the objective scientists are +constantly warning us, I would guess that the self-motivation in this +onward mass of fish might be<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span> compared to those human crowds that take +action under stress, independently of the individuals that make them +up. Suddenly a crowd, hitherto a random combination of people, takes +on a frightening rhythm and purpose of its own. It is governed by +laws which go back infinitely farther in the history of life than the +immediate goal of its anger or exultation.</p> + +<p>I have explained nothing. I can only say that when I first saw these +fish I was moved in spite of myself. Instinct is no more blind than +wonder. To have the human attributes of mind and spirit and the race’s +ability to control its own environment does not give me the wit to beat +the infinitely various will of life at its own game. All I could wish +for would be to join it.</p> + +<p>I walked on down the banks of Stony Brook, past the Herring Run area +with its neat paths, bridges, and fish ladders, my shoes squashing in +the mud. The stream turns a slight angle at this point, gets broader +and shallower and begins to run through the little valley that ends +in tidal marshes and the Bay. The alewives, for a hundred yards at +least, were running up against the downward currents, massed almost +stationary, not in ranks, but ordered mutuality, with a long waving +like water grasses or kelp, and curving, twisting, swirling like their +medium the water as they moved very gradually ahead. There was no +indiscriminate rushing ahead. It was done to measure; but it seemed +to me that through their unalterable<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</span> persistence I saw the heaving +of crowds of all kinds, of buffalo, cattle, sheep, or men. I had seen +as much motion in crowds pouring out of a subway entrance or massing +through a square. History was in their coming on, without its shouts +and cheers. They could not speak for themselves; but who knew how deep +the silence went?</p> + +<p>Ahead of them there was a net; behind, down the broader reaches of +the brook, the greedy herring gulls dropped down into the water after +them, or stood along the bank in apparently glutted satisfaction, while +others screamed and sailed overhead. In spite of their slow gliders’ +grace and local lethargy compared with swift sea birds like the terns, +gulls travel the rims of the world. They had always made me think of +far-distance, voyages unending. Many of them had congregated on a bald +hill that overlooks the run and were standing like white sentries under +the shafts of the northern sky beyond. From far off they sometimes +suggest rows of military crosses, and I have heard them compared to a +field of flowers. Soldiers, flowers, graves ... all these they might +suggest on the heights of fate, by their pure bold greed and unmatched +design. They stood on a wide stage.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[Pgs 53-54]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="V">V<br><br> +The Nature of an Alewife</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The fish kept moving up. I watched them swinging back and forth with +the current, great-eyed, sinewy, probing, weaving, their dorsal fins +cutting the surface, their ventral fins fanning, their tails flipping +and sculling. In the thick, interbalanced crowd there would suddenly +be a scattered dashing, coming as quickly as cat’s-paws flicking the +summer seas. They may have moved by “reflex” rather than conscious +thought, but what marvelous professionals they were in that!</p> + +<p>The cold raw winds of April had heeled back, and May swung on. There +were an increasing number of days with the wind from the southwest, +smelling of sunny springtime. The local paper had it that the +temperature averaged a high of 66.6 degrees Fahrenheit and a low of +44.2 in the week between the second and the ninth of May. The following +week the average rose a little, going to between 67.5 and 47 degrees. +The first reported striped bass, a three-and-a-half-pounder, was caught +on the Cape the eighth of the month.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p> + +<p>The willows that hung over the Herring Run were budding and flowering +out, lacing and fringing with many beads, a yellow-green; and leaves of +the red maples began to unfold, a light coppery russet color, hanging +like limp claws—and elsewhere, on higher ridges and other roads, the +oaks in their leafy variety of pink, yellow, gray and pale green, were +starting their fires with tenderness. Clouds of the shad-blow’s lacy +white blossoms came out everywhere between pitch pines and oaks, to +last only a few days and be replaced by beach plums whose flowers burst +out of their sheaths like popping corn.</p> + +<p>The procession, down the brook and around its bend, made other rushing +sounds above the noise of the flow itself. The gulls in the valley were +crying out with “ho!” and “ha!” and “yi!” The shadow of a gull flying +high over us fell across the water and the alewives rushed to the side. +The backs of some of them were cruelly gashed. There was a dead one on +the bank, stiff and dry, flatly reflecting the blue in the sky like an +unpolished knife blade.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp47" id="i168" style="max-width: 166.625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i168.jpg" alt="Seagull"> +</figure> + +<p>They were close-packed going up through the ladders, herding, slipping, +slanting, struggling in relation to each other. I grabbed one out with +my hands. It shuddered, was almost still for a second or two, like a +man with his wind knocked out, then plunged in my hands and slipped +out onto the bank. It thrashed there in the grass, a twelve-inch fish, +with a gray-green back, and silver sides and belly that<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span> reflected the +magnificent surfaces of May, with grass, sun, and blue sky intruding +through the overhanging leaves and the brown earth. It shone with +violet, yellow-green, white and brown, pink and blue. It had an +inclusive majesty, a great natural art.</p> + +<p>Its silver scales are large, like iridescent reflecting coins: and in +the water the alewife is able to alter the pigmentation of its skin so +as to blend with the background. It is able to do this very quickly, so +that it changes in color as it moves up the stream to correspond with +a darker or lighter bottom ... part of the whole various pattern of +adaptation which the fish show to the water around them.</p> + +<p>During the course of evolution brain development among the fishes has +been slow. What brain power they have is closely related to their sense +organs, concentrated on their whole bodily co-ordination; in which, +so far as water action is concerned, they are man’s superiors. An +alewife’s body is marvelously fitted to situation—peace or turbulence, +light or dark, flood and ebb, ripple or rile. This inhabitant of the +sea weaves up through the overhanging springtime, and seems a part of +it, experienced as to its flowering.</p> + +<p>For it is a salt-water fish, as I sometimes had to remind myself +later between the ponds and the Bay, although there is a landlocked +variety; and as such it is part of a prodigious tribe. As a member of +the herring family—the Clupeidae, it is related to the sea herring, +sprats, shads, pilchards, and menhadens. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span> sea herring is one of +the most important food fish in the world. In Europe whole societies +were affected by its shifts in abundance. Loss of control over herring +fisheries was instrumental in the breakup of the Hanseatic League. +In 1881 Thomas Henry Huxley said: “Man, in fact, is but one of a +vast co-operative society of herring catchers.” The yearly catch is +enormous. One school of herring may run not into millions but billions +of individual fish; though Huxley may have exaggerated the capacity of +the herring population to keep its level in the face of human demands.</p> + +<p>To mention another important relative of the alewife, the common or +American shad is also a food fish, being something of a delicacy, +prized highly for its flesh and roe. It is a larger fish, weighing +between six and nine pounds; but it is not so abundant as the alewife.</p> + +<p>The menhaden fishery is the largest in the country in terms of weight. +Some 800,000,000 pounds of this fish are harvested annually from the +Atlantic and Gulf coasts; its present fate is to be turned into fish +meal, scrap, and oil. In addition many tons of ground-up menhaden, or +“pogies,” are used by salt-water anglers to attract bluefish, tuna, or +mackerel.</p> + +<p>All these herring species are similar in appearance, with silvery +scales, easily rubbed off, thin, deep bodies, and tails quite deeply +forked.</p> + +<p>The alewife belongs to a group of great age in the earth’s history, +and one which has survived, for one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span> thing, by reason of its numbers, +and not by any skill in speed or individual pugnacity. It depends on +the crowd rhythm for perpetuation. Its salt-water whereabouts are +comparatively unknown, although it is thought it may not go very far +afield; but in a run of alewives you might sense not numbers only, +but something of the sea’s capacious demands that made these fish to +measure. Green, gray, silver, they wear its colors, and seem built to +nose into its space, or be carried with its moods.</p> + +<p>Are there no individuals among them? It is perhaps no term to apply +with so manifestly united a company. In any case we are deceived if we +try to translate ourselves, our ability to choose, our eyes for pattern +and variation, into an animal that can see us at best as an occasional, +strange, blurred image appearing above the bank, and to whom everything +but the water world is unknown. In a sense we know too little, and so +do they, to discuss the matter.</p> + +<p>Yet anyone, with a slipping, plunging alewife in his hands, knows it in +some degree for its uniqueness. This green-backed, silver-sided water +animal, smooth, supple, and muscular, with a sail-like fin on its back +is definite enough. Its body is convex-sided, coming to a thin edge +at the belly, shaped like shellfish, seeds, or Indian artifacts. From +its undershot jaw to its tail, it is clearly a tough fish, and in our +experience an adaptable one that knows its way.</p> + +<p>This is the “sawbelly” all right. You can very easily<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span> feel the +serrations, or little teeth, with your fingers—it is one good way of +telling alewives from sea herring in the dark. But the name “big-eyed” +is perhaps most dramatically true of the alewife. Its black, round, +shining eyes are very prominent in proportion to its small head and +small mouth. They are large black disks like certain water-worn rocks, +or they are great bubbles coming up from a dark depth. I fancied, +seeing a tiny image of myself in the alewife’s eye, that I was +reflected in a deep, impenetrable well.</p> + +<p>It is known that a fish’s eye is somewhat like ours in that it has +a lens, an iris, a cornea, retina, and optic nerve; but that it is +designed to see under water, which ours is not. In J. H. Norman’s +<cite>History of Fishes</cite>, he writes: “The eye, as is well known, +acts after the manner of a photographic camera, the two essential parts +being the screen or retina at the back, and the lens at the front, +which projects an image of the outside world on the screen. The lens +of a land vertebrate is somewhat flat and convex on both sides, but in +the fish it is a globular body, the extreme convexity being a necessity +under water because the substance of the lens is not very much denser +than the fluid medium in which the fish lives. The space between lens +and retina is filled with a transparent jelly-like substance, the +vitreous humor. The transparent outer wall of the eye, the cornea, is +somewhat flatter in fishes, and the space between this and the lens +is filled by the watery, aqueous humor. In land vertebrates the iris +of the eye<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span> is capable of great contraction, and, acting like the +diaphragm of a camera, regulates the amount of light allowed to enter +the eye. In fishes it generally surrounds a rounded pupil, and has +comparatively little power of contraction.”</p> + +<p>I should add that an alewife’s eye is somewhat fixed, and not capable +of much movement.</p> + +<p>Back of the eyes and mouth are the gill covers that protect the gills +underneath, which are weak and blood-filled, dark-red overlapping +layers, like petals, four on each side. As the fish’s gill covers open +and close, water passes over the gills, taking oxygen into the blood +stream. The alewife’s heart, which pumps blood to the gills, is located +directly below them.</p> + +<p>This is a plankton eater, although it will eat shrimp, small fish, +or young eels, on occasion. It has no teeth, or such a semblance of +tiny, weak ones, back in its mouth, that they are of little use. The +particles of food that come through its mouth are strained through a +device known as gill rakers, which act as sieves or filters, in the +form of fine hairlike growths mounted on the gill arches, the bony +structures on which the gills are also arranged.</p> + +<p>A female alewife can be recognized fairly readily by its size. On the +average the males run from ten to eleven inches and the females from +eleven to twelve, and the males are of course lighter. The proportion +of males to females on the inland run seems to be about fifty-fifty.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></p> + +<p>Alewives weigh anywhere between eight and ten ounces. Part of the +weight of both sexes during their spawning migration is accounted for +by the roe; in fact, their ovaries and testes may become so enlarged +as to fill up a large part of their bodies. The egg sacs of the female +vary in color from pink to yellow or yellow-orange, depending on their +stage of development. The milt, sometimes called soft roe, of the male, +is white and pink.</p> + +<p>To sketch a fish so generally is scarcely to know it, but even if I +were able to give a good account of its complex skeleton down to the +last bone, or discuss all the actions of its nervous system as known +so far, I would not have done enough. Our bodies may have chemicals in +common with them, but we will never know the fish.</p> + +<p>The alewife I took from the water eluded me. Cold-blooded fish, +warm-blooded man, the water’s triumph caught by the alien air. It +slipped my hand and knowledge. “An aquatic vertebrate?” A mystery, +though I recognized a life that shone with vibrant persistence, one of +nature’s particularized energies, a wild texture as old as the animal +world, a food that was the beneficent matter of all struggle and greed.</p> + +<p>Were there more connections between us that needed exploration? How +much fright, how much nerve-threaded darkness, how much throbbing +electric quickness might not be receiving me in the distance of that +fixed eye? Perhaps we strangers all meet somewhere in each other’s +sight.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pgs 63-64]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">VI<br><br> +Puzzles and Speculations</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The Herring Run area, small center of commerce and history, had been my +starting point, but I had hardly begun to follow the alewives on their +whole migratory route between salt water and the ponds above. First +of all I had some background of local hearsay to bring into question. +Did the herrin’ really go all the way down to South America in the +wintertime? Was it true that each fish returned to the stream it was +born in? Did they come inland on their spawning journey and then die, +like the west coast salmon? I overheard a man say, “Poor fish! All that +work just to die!” But that was one interpretation I could dispose of +early, having seen them go back to salt water the year before. Did they +only come in from the Bay at night or on foggy evenings? To find out +would take more watching and waiting than I had done so far.</p> + +<p>You might deduce this much to start with: the alewives, only a few at +first, started to come inland in the spring when the brackish waters +from the Stony Brook outlet were warmer than the Bay into which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</span> they +flowed, if only by a few degrees. They responded with sensitivity to +the temperature. If the earliest fish were the oldest, it was possible +that the later runs also corresponded to age groups, guessing by their +size, and that the youngest came last of all. Evidently schools of +alewives stay together during their ocean life according to the years +when they were spawned. Yet why, between March and June, any given +schools would come in when they did would be hard to tell.</p> + +<p>There are places where you can watch the alewives approach, at the +junction between tidal and inland waters. At Damariscotta, Maine, they +swim up a wide tidal river until a fresh-water stream flows into it +from a height above. I was told that the fish are seen massing and +circling, sometimes for days, at this point, until by some communicated +decision, or joint response—perhaps to pressure of numbers, combined +with the right temperature conditions—they start going up. A cold snap +may make them drop back to tidewater. In the same way, cold weather may +discourage their coming in from Cape Cod Bay.</p> + +<p>You can also see them schooling in the Cape Cod Canal at the entrance +to the Bournedale run, but not at Stony Brook where the outlet flows +into the Bay through low sand dunes, or sand flats at low tide. +Whatever the local topography may be, the alewives are evidently +attracted to the warmer currents and the lack of salinity in a stream +where it flows into salt water.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</span></p> + +<p>In general the cause of their moving in together from the offshore +depths is their sexual development. I have heard the speculation +that this is affected by the increase in light at this stage of the +season, but unfortunately know no more about it. In any case at the +age of four, or sometimes three, they are ready to spawn, to follow +out the new force that is in them, on an old track. Their timing, when +to migrate, is a question of generation, a decision that has to be +made once again in the earth’s timeless schedule. Perhaps there is a +comparison to be made once more with the weather, in which the element +of surprise is constant during the usual course of the season, the +intangible variant still plaguing prediction. The turns to storm or +sunshine have their own order in the years beyond the immediate one. +Who knows when anything will happen? Suddenly the cicadas start to sing +in the August trees. Why that day or hour? Because “conditions are +just right”? Perhaps, if we could ever track down all the conditions. +Natural acts may be repetitive, but no flight, or song, or new growth +has ever existed before at exactly the same time, pitch, or ratio. They +are part of the indefinite context of generation.</p> + +<p>What about the alewives during their years in the sea? Very little +seems to be known. According to <cite>Fishes of the Gulf of +Maine</cite> by Bigelow and Schroeder: “The alewife is as gregarious +as the herring, fish of a size congregating in schools of hundreds of +individuals (we find record of 40,000 fish caught in one<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span> seine haul +in Boston Harbor) and apparently a given school holds together during +most of its sojourn in salt water. But they are sometimes caught mixed +with menhaden, or with herring. Alewives, immature and adult, are often +picked up in abundance in weirs here and there along the coast, and +it is likely that the majority remains in the general vicinity of the +fresh-water influences of the stream-mouths and estuaries from which +they have emerged, to judge from the success of attempts to strengthen +or restore the runs of various streams.... But it is certain that some +of them wander far afield, for catches up to 3,000 to 4,000 pounds per +haul were made by otter trawlers some 80 miles offshore, off Emerald +Bank, Nova Scotia at 60 to 80 fathoms, in March 1936.”</p> + +<p>They also say, with circumspection: “It seems likely from the various +evidence that the alewives tend to keep near the surface for the first +year or so in salt water, and while they are inshore when older. But +practically nothing is known of the depths to which they may descend if +(or when) they move offshore, there being no assurance that those taken +by trawlers were not picked up, while the trawls were being lowered or +hauled up again.”</p> + +<p>The view that most of the alewives stay in coastal waters near the +fresh waters where they were hatched seems to be generally accepted, +though the proof is sometimes hard to find. They occur at various +depths in the sea as well as considerable distances offshore.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span> They are +as likely to be found in deep as in shallow waters. I am told there +are recorded views that landlocked alewives winter in the deep waters +of Lake Ontario, and that shad, a close relative, have been found with +near-bottom animals in their stomachs. I also have the information that +during the summer of 1956 draggers in Passamaquoddy Bay were catching +a large quantity of alewives and that “it looked as if they were near +bottom.” Despite some having been picked up in weirs close to the shore +at various times during the year, they have not commonly, if at all, +been taken by draggers on the continental shelf except when approaching +the shore during the spawning season. In other words their oceanic +whereabouts have not been pinned down. All we can say, still presuming +stocks are local along the coast, is that mature alewives move in from +deeper waters offshore in the springtime, progressively later from +south to north.</p> + +<p>What might seem to be a curious exception to the rule is a run in +St. John Harbor, New Brunswick, that occurs in the dead of winter. +Alewives are taken there in late January and early February; but I find +that this may not be so peculiar a phenomenon as it sounds. To begin +with, St. John Harbor is joined with the Bay of Fundy, and when the +fish move into it they are still at sea. The reasons for their move +at that time is not clear, but as there appears to be winter seining +of alewives farther down the coast along the shores<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span> of neighboring +Charlotte County, it is at least not unbelievable. The alewives then +start through the harbor and move up the St. John River to their +spawning grounds in the usual migratory months of April and May. I am +told by the St. Andrews Biological Station that: “The inflow of the St. +John River, particularly in April and May, dilutes the harbor water, +especially at the surface. Whether it attracts alewives to the harbor +or carries them there by deep circulation is a question.” This last +point brings up the problem, quite beyond my powers to understand, of +how the alewives orient themselves, how they find or are attracted to +the waters in which they spawn. We may know very little about their +life at sea, but their ability to find a particular stream or river may +be an even greater mystery, which is not lessened by the probability +that they have been there before. Whether as first-year spawners or +repeaters the alewives seem to come back to the streams from which they +migrated during the first summer and fall of their lives—when they +were not more than a few inches in length. Not consistently—a certain +amount of shifting between schools and change of locale may go on. Many +go astray like migrating birds, or men out of crowds perhaps, but in +general they do tend to return to their home streams. As a proof of +this, ponds that were empty of alewives have been stocked with them, +and the spawn returned as adults in three or four years’ time. This is +the “parent stream” theory. With salmon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span> it has apparently been shown +to be a fact; although it is not so much the stream they were born +in to which they return as the stream in which they grew up. Salmon +eggs have been taken out of one river, moved to another, and then the +hatched fry were tagged. They migrated to the sea and returned to spawn +in the second river where they had their growth.</p> + +<p>So what is to account for the alewives being able to find a “parent +stream” that might be only a few yards wide, out of all the great +stretches of the Atlantic coastline? They left it when they were no +more than one and two-fifths to four inches long, but somehow, growing +up in the sea, they must always have been oriented to that home base. +They may have stayed reasonably near by, but even so this ability is +hard to fathom.</p> + +<p>Disregarding the question of how they arrived at that point, how could +they tell one stream from another? They enter innumerable rivers, +streams, inlets, some of them in close proximity. One theory has it +that they are able to find their home waters by their characteristic +odor, their special composition, to which they were conditioned when +young. Even so, how did they get there? How can fish way offshore in +waters of a consistent temperature, without any landmarks, tell which +direction will take them to their home street? It is quite likely that +they would be able to detect the outlet waters where they merged with +the sea, but a stream may not reach very far, perhaps<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span> a few hundred +yards or more at low tide, before being totally absorbed. All the way +along the coasts, rivers and streams pour in fresh water, mixed in the +estuaries so that it is brackish when it reaches the sea. The sea water +increases in salinity as it gets deeper over the continental shelf. An +alewife may detect very slight differences in salinity comparatively +far out, but we are still not much closer to realizing how it finds its +way.</p> + +<p>What it amounts to is that no particular factors seem to be able +to explain this directional ability of theirs. Not the response to +changing currents in the spring sea, not the perception by fish of +varying pressures in salt water, or of differences in salinity, +nor their possible ability to use the sun as a reference point in +navigation ... none of these approaches have yet solved the great +mystery. Do they have some special sense, some perceptiveness, about +which we know nothing? Scientists have measured and probed their +reactions for a long time, but so far have not found any evidence of +a special sensory ability. Biologically, fish do have several unique +characteristics. For example, they have an “air bladder” by means of +which they are able to adjust themselves to changing densities in the +water. They also possess a “lateral line” organ, consisting of a tube +or canal under the skin filled with mucus and connected to the nervous +system. This sense, closely associated with hearing, enables them to +detect vibrations of a very low<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span> intensity in the water and to avoid +obstacles, such as an approaching bank or another fish. Aside from +that, fish can smell, they have sight, and they have a sense of touch +and taste.</p> + +<p>These known senses are what scientists count on in investigating the +migratory behavior of fish. They test their responses to different +stimuli. On that basis, one of the most recent directions to be +explored centers around the environmental factors which the fish +are subjected to, such as currents, temperatures, the physical and +chemical nature of the waters through which they swim. These factors +are supposed to guide them successively on their migrations and to be +so consistent year after year that the responsive fish return to their +streams of origin because they never got off the track. Different +schools, or age groups, of alewives would go to separate streams, +because they responded differently, as Gerald B. Collins puts it in +his study of alewives at Bournedale, “to the existing patterns of +environmental stimuli.” Homing, from the environmentalists’ point of +view, is neither a matter of memory nor mystery.</p> + +<p>I do not have enough knowledge behind me to discuss such a method or +approach, but it does seem to have the advantage of comprehensiveness, +of taking the whole journey in. It does not depend on any single factor +to explain migratory behavior, and it provides a good long track of +exploration, step by step.</p> + +<p>Whether the migrant fish behave as mechanically<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span> as this suggests, +or whether the factors involved are separately either as consistent +as they are supposed to be, or amount in the aggregate to as much as +they should, remains to be seen. We are still in the realm of theory, +however rationally expressed, and do not know yet how the fish find +their destination.</p> + +<p>Can a fish judge its course by the sun, or by the circulation of the +waters of which it is so much a part? Can we talk about a homing +instinct, or orienting ability, in connection with it? What are we +defining? I don’t think I beg the question by finding it pertinent that +civilized human beings have to some extent lost their ability to find +their way in the woods, or no longer rise and sleep with the sun, or +that they are not aware of the changing tides. Some old directional +knowledge may still be innate in us, though we seem to think we have no +need of it. Our puzzle, or lack of definition, may lie with ourselves +as much as the alewives. In any case, what we try to find out by fact +or abstraction is already known to the fish.</p> + +<p>They are still ahead of us. So much of their motion seems to be a part +of the race as a whole, synonymous with its great water world, that it +is almost as if they found their way like the wind and tides, elemental +forces that we find it hard to evaluate. We try to pin down that which +expands immeasurably beyond us.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pgs 75-76]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">VII<br><br> +Port of Entry</h2> +</div> + + +<p>With a certain amount of half-determined knowledge behind me, I decided +early one morning to follow up the question of how far the brackish +waters of the Stony Brook outlet extended into Cape Cod Bay, and so +went down to Paine’s Creek. This is the place where the stream, which +has been winding through tidal marshes like a small river, ends in a +basin where several dories are moored, then takes a last turn and long +curve, cutting through low dunes anchored by beach grass that border +the sands. I saw a kingfisher rising up over the creek, a green crab +shifting along the shelving bank; and on the beach were the remains of +a black duck, sodden, bedraggled, the feathers loaded with wet sand, +the breastbone sticking up like the white prow of a helmet, flies +buzzing over it—the smell of salted carrion around it.</p> + +<p>The sound of the waters along the creek is constant and musical, +following and followed up, broadly roaring, rushing, or slipping +lightly, as they rise, pushed back by the incoming tide, or run out +low and easy<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span> with the ebb. At low tide these creek waters spread +their channels and fingered rivulets some three hundred yards straight +out over the sands, to a point where they are joined by the waters of +Quivett Creek which has an inlet a few hundred yards upshore to the +west. Then the one channel finds its way past a fish weir until it is +lost in the salt waters coming in over a long bar in the distance. The +alewives also swim into the other creek; though not in the numbers that +run up Stony Brook, because of less access to spawning grounds beyond.</p> + +<p>The tide was well out when I started to follow, or rather taste the +fresh water over the sands. The Brewster flats, as they are called, +were alive with light and constantly changing where they stretched +out on the earth’s curve. Minor investigation took place in maximum +horizons. I walked toward the weir, or fish trap, one of three in +the distance, long-poled stockades a quarter of a mile or so apart, +hung with nets like veils or the peaked coifs of nuns. A silver sun +was beginning to lift through sheets of low fog, and a cool wind blew +across the sands. It made my ears boom with that hollow sound of deep +marine that you hear in a shell. I saw a small flock of brant standing +off, their heads alert for danger, ready to thrust up and go when I +came. I approached lines of brown dunlins, red-backed sandpipers, +sanderlings, black-bellied plovers, which stood and scurried, peeped +and cried,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span> flew forward into the wind for short stretches, and came +down again.</p> + +<p>As the sun rose farther up, clouds began to be reflected in the lanes +between the ribbed sands, and there were thousands of gulls standing in +a silver, immeasurable distance, while those sharp, light arrows, the +terns, flew overhead. The flats with their brown deserts, their lakes, +and pools, and veins, were like the patterned floors, the reaches of +the great civilizations of man. The dawn fogs blew off. I was waking up +to an architecture of space.</p> + +<p>Now from these tidal areas the plains of the sea rove out indefinitely. +You can get a look at the universal map without benefit of signposts, +and the coming on of fish represents great standards of inevitability.</p> + +<p>“But look,” a scientist might say, “in this unlimited space of yours, +the mating animal only has a tiny area to travel in; a few miles at +sea, if in the case of the alewives, they do stay offshore, and perhaps +two or three miles inland. They are limited in space, and limited in +numbers accordingly.”</p> + +<p>True, but we might add that it is this limitation, in alewives at +least, that makes increase possible. They are one of the most easily +managed of all marine species. Clear out the obstructions in their +way; restock a lake and river system, or pond and stream, and the fish +return, the population rises. Alewife management depends on their +almost relentless drive to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span> go back where they came from. No life +insists on its locality more strongly. Home in their case is a definite +route, a round way, small if you like, but spinning in larger circles, +where birth leads back to its necessity.</p> + +<p>So I walked the sea lands, following the alewives’ avenue of approach. +Well beyond the weir I began to get in too deep to qualify as an +investigator. I judged that the brackish water of the outlet went +at least five hundred yards out, and probably several hundred yards +more than that, before it flowed into the salt waters of the Bay and +then was lost in them. It seemed, during low tide at least, that the +alewives might detect the fresh water reasonably far out in the Bay, +disregarding the question of how they arrived at that point.</p> + +<p>As I went back across the wind again, under the hovering, crying birds, +and saw where the waters of the two creeks came out, that strange fish +knowledge of where to go was still unbelievable. I imagined alewives +coming in here, or to a shore where there were even more creek inlets +fairly close together, and wondered whether the schools joined in +the Bay like concentric circles and then separated, each going to +the stream in which it grew up. I also wondered about that supposed +chemical sense, or sense of odor, that might explain the alewife’s +knowledge of its home stream. Would not the composition of the waters +of any one stream change greatly at various times of the year? It must +be very different in the hot summer,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pgs 81-82]</span> when the little alewives come +down to salt water, from the cool months of spring when the adults +came in. Would that not be just as important a factor as the stream’s +difference from another close by?</p> + +<p>Two miles farther up along the shore is another inlet at the mouth +of Sesuit Creek. Many years ago the Sesuit and Quivett inlets were +interconnected at some point back in their tidal marshes; and before +the roads and banks were built that now divide them there was also +more access to several ponds in the vicinity, both large and small. +Since the glacial ponds of Cape Cod seem to fill up and dry out in +time, turning to wooded or grassy hollows, it is possible too that the +alewives had even more entryways, and went even farther inland, having +longer fresh-water routes to travel—water veins open and flowing +everywhere. In any event, the alewife population now starting up these +two inlets is very small compared to that of Stony Brook, which shows +that the fish are balanced in numbers according to the relative ease +or difficulty of getting inland to adequate spawning grounds. In part, +it also seems to be an added proof of the parent stream theory. The +fish know their way. For whatever reason, and whether or not they are +entirely consistent in coming back to the exact stream, it seems to us +that they have a remarkable sense of direction, although, for all we +know, it may not be any more remarkable than the accuracy of the tides +or the timing of the sun.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pgs 83-84]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">VIII<br><br> +The Common Night</h2> +</div> + + +<p>Did the alewives choose the night or late evening hours to come in by? +So I had been told. By daylight evidence, the fish population increased +at the Herring Run on the mornings following a nightly high tide. I +had also heard that there were more alewives running during the tides +of the full moon, in the farthest monthly reaches of ebb and flood; +but this was a correlation that would be hard for me to make without +more years to judge by. In the middle of May on the days just after the +first quarter of the moon, which came on the sixteenth, the fish seemed +to be running just about as hard as they did during the days preceding +the full moon in April, which had appeared on the twenty-fourth. +Judging accordingly, it seemed as though their migration had its own +ebb and flood during those months. All this was not much better than +impression plus hearsay, but there seemed to be some justice to the +night tide theory, so, to begin with, I went down to the shore late one +evening during an incoming tide to see if there might be any sign of +the alewives.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</span></p> + +<p>About eight o’clock, an hour before high tide, the tide was running +strongly in at Paine’s Creek. The channel in the marshes flooded over +its banks and marsh grasses were floating and stirring as the swaying +waters rose around them. It was near dark. I could see some seaweed +flinging by against the sandy bottom at the mouth of the creek, and a +big, ghostly green eel slithered up at the edge of the bank the waves +were licking, seemed to look up at me, looped back into the water, and +disappeared; but it was too dark to see much more than those black +clumps of seaweed racing by. I saw a group of gulls standing in shoal +waters beyond the beach, where waves were rolling in hard under a +steady northwest wind. The sun’s cauldron had dropped down, a raw, +glistening orange-red, into the sea and back of the curved horizon, +leaving its horizontal flush behind.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp40" id="i144" style="max-width: 145.0625em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i144.jpg" alt=""> +</figure> + +<p>I walked back under the lee of the sand banks bordering the curving +creek. The tide was pulsing and roaring, its waters loping in to the +creek which began to turn a harder, darker blue under the sky. Then I +began to hear the innumerable soft slaps of fish breaking the surface. +The alewives were making their entry from the sea.</p> + +<p>And the gulls proclaimed their coming. Out in the Bay, they began to +gather by the hundreds, clambering up with a scrambled yelping and +hollering. The last smoky, red line of sunset was disappearing and +they hovered over it in a maddened, high, wide<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span> swarm like huge bees. +It grew darker, and a black-crowned night heron, or “quawk,” sometimes +“quok,” a name true to the sound it makes, flew by with rounded wings +against a star. The gulls began to disappear, streaming faintly like +ashes against the last fires on the sea, but still crying vastly and +collectively toward a world of distances. And in terrible simplicity, +the alewives were swimming toward the inland gauntlet they would have +to run, having a title, by their common, wild, and ancient advent, to +all great kindled things. Who will see more than that in his short +life, with its many meetings and separations?</p> + +<p>I by an old and natural right felt a fierce water-deep wonder of the +spirit. The beyondness in me went back to its beginnings. I thought of +the nights on which children I have known were born, and of the voyages +of war, leave-takings at railroad stations and at ports of embarkation, +and of dreams in which I struggled toward new meetings and other lives. +The wind blew through the arches of the stars, and the surfaces of the +dipping earth, water, and sky in their lasting communion made me dizzy. +I felt a cold inevitable grandeur, below consciousness, a swim and go +in an uttermost wild world, past home or my life’s memory.</p> + +<p>So by this evidence the alewives came in at night, and, as a further +discovery not to be denied, so had I. Perhaps it was the closest +I would ever get to the non-human fish in a darkness where all +the components<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span> of existence ran the same race. That real depth, +fish-oriented, nakedly omnipotent, fills men when they recognize it +with more awe than their limited worlds can encompass.</p> + +<p>As I started back, about a quarter of an hour before the full tide, +headlights swept over where the road ended at the shore, and in a +minute or two a couple of fishermen lurched down the sand with high +rubber waders on, carrying their casting rods. They stood on the beach +in the dark, one of them coaching the other in baiting his hook. I came +up and spoke to them, hardly able to make out their faces. The older +one, he who did the coaching, told me that they had just got a pail of +herrin’ from the Brewster run to use as bait. They had hopes that there +would be some bass here, the famous “stripers” chasing the alewives in. +They brought their long rods sideways and back to sling the bait out +into the black and silver waves. The older man spoke low words against +the wind, and I strained to hear him. Suddenly he thought he felt what +must be alewives nosing his line and bumping against it on their way +by into the mouth of the inlet. Last year, he told me, he had seen +hundreds of them dead on the flats, and the gulls, he said, had slit +their sides open as if with knives to get the roe. The waves had begun +to slacken off when I left, and the fishermen were still casting, but +without much hope of a strike.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pgs 89-90]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="IX">IX<br><br> +The Hunt</h2> +</div> + + +<p>For a little while I felt satisfied that I knew the alewives only +chose to come in on the night or late evening tides, until they proved +me wrong. I say <i>they</i> proved me wrong because I give myself no +credit for more than moderately ignorant perseverance in following up a +hypothesis. The alewives did a good deal of proving and disproving for +me. They would probably show me up again.</p> + +<p>At the beginning of the third week in May there had been a fresh run +of fish crowding into the Herring Run, if not as heavily as those that +came in a month before. After the migration starts there are very few +days in either April or May when some fish are not to be seen in the +brook waters. One man can only judge by eye plus the amount of barrels +being hauled out as to how many there are in any period, but there may +have been a climactical run during the week after the nineteenth of +May when the high tides came at night. On the twenty-first I had been +taking temperature readings, out of curiosity and to keep up with the +advancing season. It had been around 40<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</span> degrees Fahrenheit during the +night and rose to 47 at 7:30 <span class="allsmcap">A.M.</span>, 53 at 9:00 and 55 at 9:30 +as the sun’s rays heated the land. Just offshore, down the beach from +Paine’s Creek, at around 9:30, high tide being at 9:57, the temperature +of the salt water, more consistent than the land, was 49, and the +reading I then took of the brackish water at the mouth of the creek was +51.</p> + +<p>I noticed a small crew of alewives in the tea-dark channel. Had they +come in the night before? They were schooling back and forth, as though +getting accustomed to the waters in which they newly found themselves.</p> + +<p>The tide began to turn. The waters going out at the creek mouth were +yellow-green. I walked along the beach, and the surface of the Bay was +long and smooth, a blue-green stretching and easing under a light wind +with purple patches showing above seaweed and shelving banks of peat. +I could hear the slow, gentle, labial sounds of the lightly ebbing +waters. There was a small school of unidentifiable minnows turning +and slipping-in-silver just offshore. A long frieze pattern of gull +tracks showed, where the sand was damp, crisscrossed here and there by +the little tracks of sandpipers and plovers. This cool, seaside world +seemed full of equipoise to me, with a searching air of freedom playing +over.</p> + +<p>There had been several clumps of herring gulls standing in shoals in +the creek where it flowed out into the Bay. I noticed that some of them +had begun<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</span> to fly up. Then I saw a great black-backed gull swoop at the +water farther out, and a number of herring gulls beyond it plummeting +down, then chasing each other over the surface. They were after fish, +but what kind? I went off for twenty minutes to get some field glasses, +and by the time I returned the gulls had increased by the hundreds. Big +clouds of them were circling and moving in from up the coast, higher +and higher like drifting paper, some of them way up in the blinding +blue sky, but coming closer, joining the feast.</p> + +<p>I could see that the gulls were diving straight down the course of +the Paine’s Creek waters where they went out into the Bay, and that +the fish they flung up between them clearly had the general size and +shape of alewives. What was going on then was a great interception. +The fish in their deliberate way had found the mouth of the creek, and +made their instinctive move to go in, but as the water became shallower +during the ebb tide they were ripe prey for the birds and there was no +turning back.</p> + +<p>The violent, reckless activity of the gulls went on all morning. In +the way they have of riding each other: “You’ve got it. Show you can +keep it!” they were picking up fish, dropping them, and running away +with them again, in a scrambling frenzy. There seemed to be almost more +excitement, more energy, spent in the chase than in the fruits of it, +though they gobbled what they could. I could hear an over-all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span> sound of +struggle as their wings rushed and they yawked and screamed. This world +seemed pantingly, gruntingly, wildly busy.</p> + +<p>The victims of this natural slaughter seemed to have moved on a little, +with their fatal determination, but as the tide and morning ebbed the +white, frantic crowd above them seemed to stay in the same general +area. It was not likely that many fish managed to reach the inlet. I +imagined them dashing from side to side or circling in panic, the crowd +knowing nothing but its own entity and safety. I talked to a man who +was watching the scene from the window of his car. He told me that +there had been a high bluff, washed away some years back, from which +you could actually see the fish in the water as they struggled to swim +in.</p> + +<p>“We had a good stream went out there that wouldn’t a happened,” he +said, suggesting that if there were a deeper channel meeting the +Bay waters, most of the fish might be able to get up the creek in +comparative safety.</p> + +<p>Along this stretch of rhythmic work of greed and death little groups +of gulls began to settle down on the water, glutted and loaded down. +Then long lines of them, looking like white shoals, rested on the water +upshore, digesting their meal. Low tide that afternoon came at 3:57. By +two o’clock when the sands began to show, well out toward the weirs, +the great tribal company of gulls were finished with the hunt. For a +mile along the flats they were standing into a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span> stiff wind. In the +distance I could see a litter of dead fish along the bed of the creek +waters. When I walked out I saw them, silver, blue, and white, with +brassy tints from the sun, flung along, strewn on like debris through a +wide city square.</p> + +<p>Even though there may be no waste in nature—with everything used, +fired, and consumed in the interactions of the living world—what an +enormous, careless expenditure! The bed of the outgoing waters was +paved with this alewife coinage for hundreds of yards. Each one I +picked up, and there were thousands, had its body scraped and clawed, +or its head torn, its eyes gouged out. For every one gobbled during the +chase there must have been many more left uneaten. Remembering what +the night fishermen had said, it seemed like an indiscriminate feast, +and it was not clear to me that the gulls were primarily after roe. +But since fish eggs are a delicacy to other animals, gulls may find a +special enjoyment in them too.</p> + +<p>So the alewives did not choose to come in by night or evening only, +seeing that they chose to come in by day—provided there was much +choice in the matter. I heard the theory put forward that they must +have been chased in by bass; but if they were so chased, it did not +seem likely that they would choose the narrow waters of this particular +creek for refuge, or have that much calculation in them. That is not +why they came in. Those thousands of years the alewives had migrated +provided their own track. The<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span> fish knew instinctively when and where +to go, and all risks were incidental to that. The only possibility was +that they might have been schooling around in the farthest reaches +of the creek waters in the bay and were hurried in by the bass; but +they were there first. Many others may have gone in the night before. +Those trying to come in during the morning waited their turn after +an ebb tide. This rhythmic deliberation and then going seemed very +characteristic of the fish as I had watched them in inland waters, and +in a larger way it might be similar to their schooling in salt water. +I found out subsequently that the alewives coming into the Bournedale +run in the Cape Cod Canal do so both day and night, but that there is +less chance of the gulls intercepting them there because of the deeper +waters.</p> + +<p>I went down to Paine’s Creek the following morning, May 22, and the +frenzied hunt was going on again. I had checked the previous night and +did so the night of this day too and there were no fish coming in, so +far as I could tell. There was no sign of them in the water during the +late evening, no sound of their soft slapping on the surface later on.</p> + +<p>It is my impression that though they start into the creek in the +dark—perhaps not later than ten-thirty or eleven o’clock—they do not +move upstream very much until daylight comes. Sunlight stimulates them, +or, to be exact, its radiation. You can see them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pgs 97-98]</span> swimming up faster in +Stony Brook after the bright sunlight warms the water in the morning.</p> + +<p>They might enter the creek more successfully under the protection of +fog, or darkness, combined with deep water, but did not prefer such +conditions to broad daylight. When the temperature was right and they +were physiologically ready, alewife schools began to move in from salt +water on an incoming tide ... swing in might be a better term, since a +circular movement is characteristic and sends them on. According to my +observation, incidentally, this is very likely to be counterclockwise. +In any case the power and direction of the migration came from their +combined rhythmic impulses.</p> + +<p>Alewives seemed to me to demand a study of universal motions and their +interrelationships. The body of a fish must have in it the declination +of the globe and all its years. If I had read some of my limited +science reading correctly, there was a time system in the world of +life which had nothing to do with clocks, and their specific minutes +and hours. It was built into its creatures so that their stages of +development, their growth and movements, followed the direction and +change of all other forces affecting them. It is a running world; and +who, in that context, is more automatic than another?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pgs 99-100]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="X">X<br><br> +Transition: Salt and Fresh</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The change, for those fish that make it in, is from salt to fresh, +wide to narrow, deep to shallow. Watched at Paine’s Creek in the first +sheltered inland curve, the movement of those I was able to see was +like the movement of tides and estuary waters, a flowing back and +forth, a waving and interweaving. Some dropped back like leaves, then +swam up again with the rest as they all turned together. At the start +of an incoming tide—when the salt water moved in under the fresh and +the creek began to rise—the fish seemed stimulated and swam faster, +back and forth against it. Then gradually, though it was hard to see +them in the high tide waters, they appeared to move farther up the +inlet.</p> + +<p>It was an encounter at the dramatic approaches of sea and land, on the +long shoreline where continuous transitions are made between water and +earth and air.</p> + +<p>If you say the “anadromous habit” started somewhere in geologic time, +it is difficult to conceive of, and it is probably not accurate, in +the sense that these<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span> adaptations to environment do not start so much +as develop and evolve. In any event the incredibly long history of +the earth is not broken down with any facility. First of all, leaving +out the question of whether fish originally evolved in fresh waters +or the sea, and then blithely skipping one hundred million years or +so, you have an evolved race of alewives, established residents of the +sea. As to their habit of spawning in fresh water, it is possible that +alewives, like other coastal fish, may gradually have explored the +inland rivers and streams, until they began to use their comparative +quiet and refuge in which to spawn. Along the northern coasts their +inland migration would have been interrupted during the glacial epochs, +and their range would have started farther to the south. There are +landlocked varieties of alewife in Lake Ontario and in New York State, +which also suggests a period when the continental glaciers retreated, +leaving an access by water to inland lakes from the sea which was later +cut off. In any case this anadromous habit was arrived at gradually, +involuntarily, over a very long time. But, in a sense, what you see +<i>now</i>, your center of history, is a routine which is neither old +nor new but both various and inexorable, having in it the pull of the +land, the blood of the sea.</p> + +<p>This starting, circulatory movement of the few small schools I had seen +was succeeded by the swimming of steady herds in the brown water of +the channel. I couldn’t find them at first. On the ebb tide,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span> when the +water had receded enough from the banks along the inlet I walked there +for a while and then cut across the tidal marsh. The day was cool and +fresh, with a light northeast wind lifting in, and it smelled of the +sea. (You can live a mile or so inland on the narrow peninsula of Cape +Cod, in the towns or oak woods, and never smell that rich combination +of salt water, shellfish, and tidal marsh, unless the wind is from +the right quarter, with a special condition of the atmosphere.) Light +rippled up the broad inlet—the coppery waters seemed to move slowly +and reliantly. The season had hatched its enthusiasms everywhere, from +flies, to crabs, to birds. The tidal ground was pitted with holes made +by fiddler crabs. They backed away in front of me, the males comically +holding up their one big claw—little characters of a dull metal-blue, +with bubbling mouths—and disappeared into the safety of their burrows. +Ahead of me nine Canada geese, which had been resting and feeding in +the marshes, unfolded their wings and lunged up and out toward the Bay.</p> + +<p>Then two black ducks flew off quacking in their deep, wild way. I saw +where a deer had left fresh hoofprints in the mud; looking down at them +made me notice many tiny shells, newly hatched whelks perhaps, carried +in by the tide, strewn between the stiff spikes of the marsh grass; and +I found a couple of empty pint bottles, sometimes as common in these +parts as Kleenex beside the highways of America.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span> Insects, shells, +ducks, geese, crabs, wind, cloud rack overhead, brilliance and shadows +on the tidal ground—many lifetimes of learning. Is there any man who +knows the length and breadth of anything, let alone a creek? Yet such a +place keeps announcing its novelties and exacting from us whatever love +and discipline we are capable of; or so I felt, challenged in the keen +air and the high glitter of the light.</p> + +<p>Several hundred yards around another bend in the inlet, where it was +some twelve to fifteen feet wide, I looked down into the water and saw +them again. The dark channel was alive with them. It had a floor of +turning, slowly moving alewives. A few at the end of this school would +run quickly back, revealing their shadows on the bottom. The procession +moved back and forth, as smoothly as the flow of the water, and across +the entire width of the channel. They were more numerous in the areas +where the sun hit the water directly.</p> + +<p>Some of them looked torn and scarred. On that basis, and because many +thousands had either been trucked off from the Herring Run in barrels +by this time, or had reached the ponds, spawned, and returned to +the Bay, you could not say categorically that they were all moving +inland. As the season develops you can always find spent fish on +their way to salt water running through those still heading up to +the spawning areas. Aside from watching their movements, one method +of distinguishing between the two<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span> classes of fish is to see if they +bear any white patches on their backs and sides. A certain number of +the spent fish will show fungus growths after a period of time in +fresh water. What seems to happen is that an alewife, attacked by a +gull or predatory fish or flung against sharp rocks, will at first +show a “scaling” from the damage. This scaling, unless it is more +than that, a mortal wound, is likely to develop into a fungus growth, +which sometimes covers a large part of a fish’s body; but without, +apparently, any added injury. I believe experiment proves that the +fungus disappears fairly soon after the fish affected are back in salt +water.</p> + +<p>The returning alewives will stay for a while in the brackish water of +the inlet, resting and feeding. They are spare and hungry and will feed +on shrimp, small eels, and small fish. Alewives that by chance stay +longer than the others in fresh water have been known to chase and eat +their own young, if they were small enough to swallow.</p> + +<p>Their basic salt-water diet is plankton. The copepods and +amphipods—tiny animals similar to the well-known sand hoppers, beach +fleas, water fleas, or small shrimp—provide the staple part. On their +inland migration they will not eat much of anything. They are in the +service of a mission, and they fast. Still there may be occasions when +they snap at lures. I have heard of some, migrating inland, that were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span> +caught by fishermen casting with flies at the Herring River in Harwich, +on the south side of the Cape.</p> + +<p>Those herds now in the brown waters of the channel seemed to be +gradually moving inland as the day advanced, and I guessed that for +most of them it was the journey up.</p> + +<p>As I watched them there was a slight, quick change of wind, a shift in +the breeze that flicked the water, and in the crosshatches this made on +the bright surface all the fish disappeared. Then the surface cleared +and I could see them again, swimming through a rippling weave of light +that was reflected on the channel floor.</p> + +<p>They meandered along, an occasional lively one dashing through the +rest, or rushing up to the surface. I could hear light plops, faint +flips along the water. I walked closer to the edge so that my shadow +fell across them, and they turned back in one quick and graceful +stampede, some of them dashing to deeper water under the opposite bank. +That so many separate entities should have such an immediate response +to one another that they all moved like the beat of a wing was hard for +one individual to understand.</p> + +<p>Alewives are able to stand the quick change from salt to fresh water +without any trouble. It would kill some other kinds of fish, but +neither the alewife fry growing up in fresh water nor adults growing +up in the sea seem to mind being taken out of one medium and plunged +into another. They are adapted to both.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span> On the other hand, repeated +changes, such as occur sometimes under certain conditions in tidal +estuaries, are said to be able to kill them.</p> + +<p>These changes, incidentally, are registered in an alewife’s scales. To +read them is difficult and requires a competent biologist. In general +they mark physiological changes, such as occur when young alewives +go from fresh to brackish water, or when the adults spend some time +in fresh water before returning to the sea. An alewife’s age can be +determined because a record of each spawning migration is etched on the +scales.</p> + +<p>I had seen them flashing and swarming inland up in the Herring Run +area, but in this wide channel were new motions that needed more +patience and information to be understood. For example, where the +fish eddied and wheeled under the dazzling rays, I noticed one group +idling in front of a submerged sand bar or reef that ran across the +channel. I waited there for three-quarters of an hour before the fish +showed signs of any common impulse to cross over it. One or two dashed +over sportively to chase a minnow and then sped back, but the rest +of them—a hundred or more—would make no move. Finally, after many +circling approaches by the whole crowd, the measure of their circle +came closer and closer out of the brown water to the brightly lit, +coppery bar, until some of the vanguard spilled over. Then more and +more sped and skittered over until the move was<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span> accomplished. Why? +Were they afraid of the brightness? Did the contrast in light stop them +in some way? This would hardly seem consistent with what I had found +out so far. Perhaps it was just routine to their motion. Evidently +alewives idle in the deeper channels where the velocity of the water is +slower and easier to swim in. They respond to the relative force of the +flow. Where the current is more uniformly rapid, and they are going up +against it, they progress steadily. And perhaps the bar formed an eddy +behind it, so that the water where they swam moved against the current +in the channel and they were unable to tell their direction.</p> + +<p>The alewife hordes puzzled me as they moved slowly but definitely +through the channel. A new animal, moving to unknown needs is hard to +understand. You grasp for some translation between you that will not +come. Relationships in the water world seem to need other senses than +your own. It could be said that to understand the transition of the +alewives from salt to fresh water and back you must know about the +effect of the endocrine glands on the reproductive system, as well as +adaptations of the kidney, along with the temperature, the time of the +tides, and the chemical composition of a particular stream—just to +begin with. If you are wise and devoted enough to put all the known +factors together, you may come out with a unified interpretation, and +be abreast of the latest theories of process. Knowledge is the motion +by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[Pgs 109-110]</span> which the human animal may come closest to a fish. Still I looked +in my ignorance for another familiarity in which we shared. Where the +sea pushed inland and the alewives moved ahead or returned, I saw an +indefinite route, of surpassing, complex elaboration; but in their +pulse and tempo I felt something that gave me present assurance, and a +touch of joy.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[Pgs 111-112]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XI">XI<br><br> +Up the Valley</h2> +</div> + + +<p>When you leave the channel that elbows through the tidal marshes and +then goes under the shore road, Route 6 A, through the valley ending +at the Herring Run, you go from one living community to another. You +leave the thousands of fiddler crabs tunneling through marshy ground, +the fat, olive-colored little salt-water minnows, or mummichogs, +darting through green clouds of muck in the warm pools left by the +tide, and muskrats, kingfishers, herons, ducks, or gulls. Some are +permanent residents, others are itinerants, but all are presently bound +together in the tidal grounds. They feed off one another, being both +producers and consumers of food, and so sustain the balance of all +their lives together. Such communities are the principal study of the +ecologists—the interrelationship of living things in their environment.</p> + +<p>The alewife migrates from sea to ponds through the inland vein, from +crabs and shellfish to robins, and frogs beyond the tide. Its migration +runs through several different life communities, of which it is not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span> +strictly a part, although its progeny, the fry, will be a part of +the food chain all the way along, the prey of many different kinds +of fish and birds, and eaters themselves of food the ponds provide. +But the alewife’s migrant continuity is like the water itself that +runs unceasingly down the valley, and ties all the life together that +adjoins it.</p> + +<p>The stream, on the north side of the shore road, used to run up the +center of the valley where there is still a ditch dividing once +cultivated cranberry bogs, but the watercourse was long since diverted +to the eastern side of the valley. It was in that direction I went one +half-showery, half-sunny day for a further exploration, but first by +way of the short, bordering range of hills before going down again. +Hills and scoured valley were left by the most recent continental +glacier as it melted back from the terminal moraine of Cape Cod perhaps +some twelve thousand years ago. I climbed the steep slope on the west +side of the valley, nearest the Herring Run. Below me the long, snaky +turns of the run went down from its rocky top where the waters were +churning white and spilling over. As I walked up and down the slopes +and across the small ravines between them, I could hear voices receding +down by the Herring Run; and then a woodchuck whipped a whistle and +dove when I came up, its brown rump disappearing into a freshly dug +hole, which had an arc of sandy yellow dirt piled outside. On the way +there were wild cherry, viburnum,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span> hawthorn, pitch pine, and juniper +sparsely growing, and I passed a dipping stone wall that marked an old +boundary line. I picked up a wing from the remains of a dead herring +gull on the ground, put it before the light wind, and was struck with +what broad strength it held the air. As I came toward that knob of a +hill where the gulls congregated, they flocked away with a simultaneous +rush of wings and went crying high toward the Bay. The hill was bald, +except for a few wild rosebushes on its crown, and its slopes were +covered with a wild pink, moss campion, and patches of sorrel made +more profuse by nitrogen and ammonia from gull droppings. On the other +side of the valley there was a wood of twirling, gnarled, gray tupelo +trees with the pink of their buds still showing. Bay waters and the +curving, final shore carried distance out along with the gulls; while +this valley with its dips and slopes and the migratory waves of life to +which its land and water were hosts seemed wide enough for many worlds.</p> + +<p>As I clambered down a slope toward the stream, three ducks that were +coming in to settle on marshy ground changed course, two black-crowned +night herons flew out of a tree, clucking like hens, and a yellowlegs +stalking through muddy peninsulas flew up and away, its sickle wings +in reckless flight, with a cry both tremulous and sharp. Everything +fled before me. I might be a part of these communities myself but as +an itinerant, it seemed, and a dangerous<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span> one. How difficult it is to +prove to anything but domestic animals, long since tamed and lost, that +a man is not dangerous! Men have a hard time trying to prove it to +themselves.</p> + +<p>I had come down near the point where Stony Brook started to turn to the +east side of the valley. The banks behind me were streaming with spring +water and the wet edges were lush with new growth: lettuce-green grass, +succulent-looking leaves of skunk cabbage, fiddlehead ferns newly +uncurling, and clumps of violets, flowers of a sky-delicate light blue. +At this edge of the valley the water was full of thicketed islands, +hummocks, and muddy shallows, but as the stream stretched on, ten to +twelve feet wide, the current swung along at a man’s fast walk over a +brown and sandy bottom, and in it, constantly eddying by and turning +over, were innumerable silver fish scales, debris of the striving and +death at the Herring Run, several hundred yards behind.</p> + +<p>Where the stream turned at right angles across the valley it was +bordered by a low man-made dike. Halfway down the dike, at the end +of a long narrow ditch bisecting the old bogs, was the remains of a +<i>stop water</i>, a kind of three-sided dam designed to raise or lower +the water in a cranberry bog to its desired level. I looked down into +its still, dark square of water and there was a split-second rush of +a fish, and perhaps two or three others coiling in the small space +together. They may have been spawning. In any case,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</span> intentionally +or not, they had come down the ditch instead of by the main stream +and could go no farther. There are many areas in a run, side pools, +ditches, marshy land, to which some alewives may be sidetracked, before +the main spawning grounds.</p> + +<p>I saw a few later in a dead-end offshoot of the Herring River that +looked very much as if they were trying to go back, though I have no +reason to suppose they felt that they had made a mistake. If they were +not ready to spawn they may have circled back with the ebb tide, which +reached that point, and found the main flow where they had lost it on +the way up.</p> + +<p>I have idly wondered whether a single fish, isolated from its brethren, +might not suffer some kind of unknown hell of estrangement. I have seen +one swimming wildly down a narrow ditch off a tidal inlet as if it knew +the crowd had left it behind, and was frantic to get back. Still, for +all we can say about their lack of consciousness, they carry out their +great decisions, their deep harmonies, together, by natural laws which +we ourselves cannot completely explain, and by which we too may carry +out our migrant purposes.</p> + +<p>The creek flowed on through banks tangled with poison ivy, blueberry +bushes, briars, and grapevines—at times almost impassable. Once, as +I peered out from the tangle, I saw a bird I had never seen outside a +field guide—a Virginia rail, moving along a<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</span> muddy shelf under the +opposite bank. It moved almost humped over, neck and head forward, like +a great mouse, with a docked tail and red-orange beak. Then farther on +I saw an egret with head and slender neck above some high pitch pines, +pure sky-white, Grecian, out of a stately, impenetrable world, almost +too secret for an ecologist.</p> + +<p>Where the stream was wider and the shallow water flowed along, lightly +and unobstructed, a group of some ten or twelve fish ran easily across +it. Then they stopped and circled with the current like a nest of eels, +in a slow, fluid mass.</p> + +<p>I turned back. After light sunshine there was a faint shower, a spray +of rain. The valley was full of sound. A slow plane flew over; a +truck’s gears ground over the road; I heard a song sparrow staking out +his territory; crows cawed; blue jays gave harsh and silvery shouts; I +heard my own breath and the almost silent touch of cool air and rain +spray on the ground—a narrow valley, but with melodious resources from +everywhere. Why “back to nature”? I thought. Is there anything in it +but forwardness?</p> + +<p>In the stretch below the Herring Run again I suddenly saw, in the +blank, dark water under gray skies, a wave, an eruption, a rushing +ahead of a group of fish. Then they moved over to the side of the +shallow stream, thirty or forty of them, and stayed there almost +stationary for a while in deeper, slower currents where an overhanging +shrub shaded the water. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</span> threw a stick in their direction ... when +it hit the water they wheeled wildly on their group axis, but stayed +in the same place. Then in a minute or two they all made a break for +open water at once, and I noticed that another group had come in unseen +behind them. They would progress in this way, group after group, until +they met the denser population below the fish ladders. One of them +would come out first with a kind of flitting, darting, weaving forward +against the current and the rest wheeled in behind it.</p> + +<p>I took off my shoes and waded out into the stream. A lead fish working +its way back and forth with the current swung around as I came and fled +back. I stood still for a while, noticing that the gulls I chased out +of the valley had returned and were hovering over, chuckling, crying, +mumbling, or barking like seals. After a few minutes of waiting the +fish came right through and around my legs. My slightest change in +posture would send the ones in front looping back, but they still kept +coming. It was a quickening thing to see a fish race up in a long reach +and then drop part way back again—a tentative, fast exploration of +the current, the living current as perpetual as its own communicated +impulses.</p> + +<p>One hundred yards or so upstream the alewives covered the stream bed +where Stony Brook’s divided waters met. Some schooled slowly around +below the unsurmountable falls, the rocks of death, the majority headed +up the main stream toward the fishway where<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span> hundreds were massed, +slipping and turning, arched in the white waters. Fishways are so +designed as to allow the alewives an easier way to mount an incline, +but they do have the effect of concentrating them in narrow quarters. +The resting pools are compartments deep enough to check the velocity of +the water and so permit the fish to wait before leaping on again. Even +so the water roared down with great force on the alewives crammed in +them. I could hardly hold my cupped hand against it. As they leaped up +they were tunneled in spouts of water, and then they would flip through +the boiling surface from one pool to the next, sometimes being thrown +back to try again.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pgs 121-122]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XII">XII<br><br> +The Imperfect Ladder</h2> +</div> + + +<p>There is no such thing, I have been told by men who were in the +business of making them, as a good or even adequate fishway. There is +always an imbalance between the purposes they serve and the results. +All the same, fishways are the best we can do to remedy a situation +that blocked great populations of fish from entry to their natural +routes. They are built to try and bring back what man has taken away; +though it should be said that they are as much in man’s interest as the +alewife’s. Commerce is the main benefactor of their success.</p> + +<p>Fishways help open up free passage to the fish, and so increase their +numbers. In a good fishway alewives can be counted or sampled. They can +be taken out and transferred to other areas that are to be stocked with +them. In other words, the removal of obstacles and the construction of +a fish ladder means, in most cases, that a run can either be introduced +or improved, and, above all, kept under control.</p> + +<p>The trouble is that they cannot be built so as to result in +free-and-easy passage for the fish at all times.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span> In fact, if they are +not properly placed, they can even be a hindrance. A fishway requires +engineering and research in its preparation. They vary greatly, of +course, according to local conditions. A fish ladder’s length depends +on the distance of the slope down which a flow is directed, or the +kind of banks, rocks, or stream formation through which it is built. +I imagine there are no ideal specifications. For alewives, fishway +construction depends in general on the size and habits of the fish and +the nature of the waters in which they travel. The great fish ladders +built for salmon at the Bonneville Dam, on the Columbia River, have +pools in them that are forty feet wide, sixteen feet long, and six feet +deep, each being a foot above the other. One foot is no problem to the +salmon, which have been known to leap as high as ten.</p> + +<p>At Stony Brook the pools on the down, or north, side of the road are +ten in number and various in size, extending some distance downstream. +The first six are smaller and deeper than the others, being so designed +as to round a bend in the stream. Their depth, subtracting several +inches of sand that keeps washing down from the road, is about two feet.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp41" id="i120" style="max-width: 146.875em;"> + <img class="w100" src="images/i120.jpg" alt="Herring run pools"> +</figure> + +<p>On the upper side, above the seining pool, leading from one of the pond +outlets, is a straight ladder, some twenty feet long. Its pools are +four and a half feet square and twenty-eight inches deep, each being +about five inches above the other, thus graduating to fit the slope.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p> + +<p>Whatever their design, fishways are all built so as to assure the +alewives quick transit from one pool to another. In most cases they +seem to work satisfactorily, but unless they are well managed they +can effect full use of the stream by the migrant fish. Alewives have +their own crowd pressure and motion, their way of moving on, and any +reduction in their numbers at any one time or counterpressure, keeping +them back, may result in a decline because less will get to the ponds +to spawn.</p> + +<p>Fishways are more rigid than a natural stream bed, though sometimes +less hazardous. Water levels change; the flow varies both in angle and +pressure; and managers of a good fishway must be constantly on the +alert for new conditions. A marked increase or decrease in the volume +of water, especially as it is reflected at the head of a fish ladder, +which usually has a gate or wooden dam of some kind, may create a +barrier instead of an aid. Unless the adjustment in the dam is just +right the head of water coming down may be almost impossible for a fish +to surmount.</p> + +<p>Alewives are not like the muscular west coast salmon with their +spectacular leaps, as if shot by a giant sling. An alewife does not +leap over a pool and up a falls so much as swim through it rapidly, +being a much smaller fish and in smaller streams. If a head of water +coming over a dam or sluice is at the wrong pitch, the fish will not be +able to climb it. In designing a fishway an engineer has to take into +account<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span> the relationship between the water head and the angle of the +flow below it, which has to be translated into how far an alewife can +swim at what speed.</p> + +<p>A fish is supported by water—an advantage over cumbersome human beings +in their own surrounding medium, the air—its specific gravity being +close to that of its own body. The fish is so made as to swim through +the water with as little resistance as possible. It also gets energy +from the water, orienting itself by the current, or the various changes +of pressure in the flow, the way a bird uses currents in the air. In +so far as a bird is streamlined too, and finds in air pressure and +weight the means to fly up and forward, their actions have something +in common. A bird, like an alewife, may lose its momentum if the angle +of climb gets too steep. Swimming and flying take place in fluid +surroundings.</p> + +<p>The difficulty in making an artificial aid like a fishway comes from +the problem, in part, of understanding a fish’s behavior; of meeting +its needs; arranging its passage; trying, if not to control nature, at +least to be a substitute for it. The positive results are plain to see, +but there is something almost as elusive about it as trying to explain +a fish in human language.</p> + +<p>At one point along the Herring River in Harwich is a concrete fish +ladder, twenty-five feet long and six feet wide. The pond above was +high, after this same rainy spring, and the waters were roaring and +frothing down. The alewives migrating upstream were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span> being held back. +Only a few I noticed were getting through. The flow had tremendous, +deep force, so that the resting pools were not serving their function, +and most of the fish that did manage by extraordinary effort to reach +the head of water at the top were not able to pass it.</p> + +<p>The racing torrent dropped to a wide, shallow basin which ended in the +river winding on within its banks. A continuous long line of fish kept +swimming through to the bottom of the ladder, where they would vainly +skip and twist and strain through the water’s force. Then they swung +back in a semicircular arc across the basin and re-formed at its edge. +There was a wide shiver on the water. They wheeled as in a dance, or +like the planets in pursuit of light, where they ran up again into +the flood. It happened time after time, in this futile but concurrent +motion, a beauty to watch—its tension, effort, and relief were exactly +co-ordinated with the water. These fish <i>were</i> the water. But I +saw in them the mechanics of breath ... contraction and expansion; and +systole, diastole, balance and counterbalance, within the dynamics +of all nature. They showed the push of life against a current, its +running back and leaping forward, its fulfillment and defeat. It was +the alewife circle again, as we have ours, in a motion of entirety; but +almost impossible to translate.</p> + +<p>“You never enjoy the world aright,” wrote Thomas Traherne, “till the +sea itself floweth in your veins.” In<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span> the knowing and encompassing +sense of his word <i>enjoy</i>, we will never know alewives until the +motion, lift, light, weight, and changing beauty of the water is in +some degree a part of us. In any case, we will never build the perfect +fishway.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[Pgs 129-130]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIII">XIII<br><br> +Persistence</h2> +</div> + + +<p>When the little wire gate on the upper side of the seining pool was +left open during the weekends the fish could pursue their destiny past +the concessionaires. One weekday night during the last run in May some +prankster took the gate out and caused much excitement in the alewives +committee.</p> + +<p>“Gawd! Gawd! ... running all night long. Here’s the town selling this +young feller the fish, and he doesn’t get any. We’ll have to put a +padlock on it ...” etc. etc.</p> + +<p>I may have had such a delinquent impulse myself at one time, but I kept +it way down.</p> + +<p>There are two streams falling into the seining pool. Both start as pond +outlets some fifty yards above, one with the fish ladder going down +from it, and the other falling into a pool that ends above the old +mill, the water of which can be used to run the water wheel on occasion +by being diverted to a wooden sluiceway, instead of taking its natural +course down over rocks into the seining pool. This second stream cannot +be traveled by fish going up to spawn although they can go down it on +their return journey.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span></p> + +<p>One weekend I watched the fish at the top of the ladder as they jumped +over the board dam, to meet at last the quiet stretch of pond water +above it. The waters were growing green with algae as the season +developed, and were penetrated by deep shadows, blue shafts from the +sun, yellow and pink reflections from the spring leaves on the bank. +Some were unable to make it and slipped back into the rushing, narrow +flow in the ladder, and then tried again. Jumping the dam, they would +give a final, vibrant, struggling push into the smooth, heavy weight +of water over the rim and then shoot off, wriggling away, easing into +a new peace. The impetus of this leap was enough to send some of them +skittering along the flat surface on their sides, like skimmed stones. +Others going into the pond would start back again toward the head of +the ladder, and then return and wait a while as if they wanted company. +As some new arrivals came they would swim a kind of half circle in +relation to them, and then all would go on, having established a +communication; but the general movement was a bolt into deeper water +and then a rejoining into groups as they went on. After that, where do +they go?</p> + +<p>As far as fish migration in general is concerned the spawning route +beyond Stony Brook is not very great. Roughly, the distance from the +outlet through Lower Mill Pond and Upper Mill Pond to the end of +Walker’s Pond is about two and a quarter miles. Upper<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span> Mill is the +largest of these, being about one and a half miles long and a quarter +mile wide. Where the fish spawn in this area is not too easy to find +out at first. Their preference as to spawning grounds seems to lie +along stony, pebbly shores, or shallow beaches. Many of them, before +spawning, will travel to the farthest reaches of any given water route. +Others, depending perhaps on how far the season is advanced and on +their bodily development, will either go the entire distance and then +return part way, or spawn before they get there.</p> + +<p>It may be that the earliest, coming in during the month of March, or +early April, when the pond waters are still cold, will go farther +than the later arrivals. Their eggs develop more rapidly as the +temperature of the water advances, from around the late forties say, +at the beginning of the season, to a maximum of 72 or 74 degrees. When +the spawn is not ready they may keep going, schooling, roaming in the +ponds for days. But there are no hard-and-fast rules about which of the +alewife schools goes where, and any generalizations would have to be +varied to suit conditions in other localities where they are found. At +one extreme they may travel for six or eight miles up a tidal river, +or at another they may come into a pond connected with salt water by a +waterway or cut only a few feet long.</p> + +<p>Many of them swim up headwaters as far as they can go, through the last +ditch to its stagnant end. I<span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span> have heard of their going through marshy +land in the direction of Pine Pond, a small pond beyond Walker’s, +once connected with it I believe. There were cranberry bogs in this +land, bordered by wire fences. The alewives would slip sideways under +the wire so as to get to the other side. This is characteristic of +them. When in very shallow water, inches deep, hardly enough for their +bodies, they will skitter on, almost flat on their sides at times, +going as far as they can until the water gets deeper.</p> + +<p>Occasionally they have been known, on their way upstream, to butt their +heads against a leaky dam where the flow of the water continued to come +rather than go up a fishway to which it had been rerouted. (In one case +an old log dam obstructing a stream had enough leaky cracks in it so +that fish slithered through them.) Such behavior may not make sense +from our point of view, but it is part of a life necessity to them. +Returning alewives are not concerned that we bypass a stream or send it +off its course. They continue to follow the direction and limits of the +flow that is in them, even as it might have been before we came.</p> + +<p>Behind their persistence, if one term can encompass enough, is +the “homing instinct.” This is not only a matter of reacting to +environmental waters, but insisting on that area where they were +spawned, and where they grew, in the first few weeks or months before +they migrated to salt water. In trying to rehabilitate the alewife +population, men in fishery<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</span> management are greatly helped by this +powerful drive to return. Sometimes they are hindered by it.</p> + +<p>There have been some areas in which the construction of dams across a +stream or river has almost destroyed an old run, although there were a +few fish left over, making a yearly, token migration. They continued to +come in and spawn below the last, impassable obstruction in their way; +but when the dams were abandoned and removed and new fishways built so +that they could travel upstream to the headwaters, the alewives stayed +where they were. They did not migrate beyond their original limit, and +the population failed to increase. It was as if there were an invisible +wall in the water where the last, accustomed barrier had stood. Not +until the headwaters above were newly stocked with spawning fish was +there any chance of the run being fully used.</p> + +<p>This built-in reaction to home waters might go back for thousands +of years in an unobstructed stream, or, in a new run, only three or +four. It has its limits, and its wisdom. What can go farther back, or +forward, than its own birth?</p> + +<p>When I started watching the alewives I heard of one phenomenon that +seemed to me to surpass all analysis. It tempted me to look for magic. +The run that comes up from Nantucket Sound on the south side of the +Cape by way of the Herring River goes through a pond called Hinckley’s, +then through a stream ending in a fairly large body of water called<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</span> +Long Pond. The migrating alewives are also able to go into another pond +out of Hinckley’s—north of it, and east of Long Pond—called Seymour +Pond, but the majority seem to spawn in Long Pond, from which there is +only one clear exit. The fish must go back to Hinckley’s, the way they +came. But this outlet was not always the same. Early in the nineteenth +century the natural outlet was a brook going into Seymour Pond, but it +was blocked and banked off by the construction of some cranberry bogs, +and the present outlet was dug some five hundred yards away. Now the +extraordinary thing is that on their return, the alewives still school +in the banked-up area of the old outlet. I went over there and could +find nothing to distinguish it from the rest of the sandy, water-lapped +shore, except that there was a slightly boggy area on the other side of +the road where the brook used to run, and a trace of its route through +the underbrush.</p> + +<p>Was there any reason at all why these fish should be able to detect +an old route cut off a hundred years ago? The direction of its flow +no longer existed as currents in the water. Yet the “damfool herrin’” +were certainly behaving according to report. I could see them, a school +of several hundred, running freely along the shore, slipping lightly +over the sand through the unruffled pond waters. When they reached the +area of the old outlet they began an almost puzzled circling, which +continued for some time before they swung back again. There should have +been a common-sense<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</span> reason for it, but I was tempted to ask, “What is +verifiable truth?” and not stay for an answer.</p> + +<p>This story does not end in mysticism. It was suggested to me that there +was a certain amount of seepage at the outlet, probably going under +the bank and road, which the alewives felt and to which they reacted. +I can only say that all has not been told about their sensitivity and +perceptiveness ... transmitted from generation to generation through +thousands of years. I was quite sure at least that they knew more about +Long Pond than I.</p> + +<p>Even if all the long-range problems about their movements cannot be +fathomed, there are enough local ones to keep a searcher busy. Given +enough persistence of one’s own, they may all be solved; helped of +course by the consistent fish. As the weeks went by I learned about +most of the local areas where they spawned. I had noticed a school +running offshore in the Upper Mill Pond, although I had not seen them +in the act of spawning. But there was one place where I had seen them +without knowing why. A few miles west of Stony Brook the fish come into +the tidal inlet known as Quivett Creek, where they appear to reach a +dead-end stretch of marsh ditched for mosquito control. I had tramped +around in this boggy region, seen a few alewives there, and come to +the quick conclusion that this was where they spawned. No one of whom +I inquired in the vicinity could tell me otherwise. I did not know +whether it<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span> was logical or not. They were not inclined, apparently, to +spawn in the full ebb and flood of the tides, but looked instead for +quiet waters. On the other hand, I had a pamphlet from the Fisheries +Research Board of Canada which said, about alewives: “... in the +Miramichi and other river systems extensive spawning takes place in the +swift waters of the main tributaries.” This was not swift water but it +drained and flooded daily. However, the fish did not seem to stay long +in the ditches, for whatever reason. It was hard to believe that they +would return to the Bay so quickly, when they had come to spawn.</p> + +<p>Being puzzled about it, I went back some days later. I walked again +through the marsh at low tide when the ground was firmer, and finally I +saw where the main flow narrowed into one of the ditches, then ran into +a very small, almost imperceptible culvert that went under the highway, +Route 6 A. Sure enough, on the other side of the road, in a ditched +area tangled with briars, I could see many fish, slowly crowding +on—but this was not the end of it either.</p> + +<p>Beyond was an impenetrable tangle of woods and thickets and an old +abandoned house, reproachfully dying, with large empty eyes where the +windows were, tall, unpainted, with dark-brown clapboards, and broken +inside. You could reach this house from a side road off the highway. +To one side of it was a small pond, which I had caught a glimpse of +before, covered with water lilies in the summertime. I went in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[Pgs 139-140]</span> over a +long high bank, part of an old road, that ran back of the house between +the tangled ditches and the pond. There seemed to be no access from one +side to the other; but toward the middle, on the side of the bank where +the ditches ended, I saw a few alewives circling in a pool of still +water. Then I heard a light splashing on the other side. I walked over +through the thickets and saw a number of fish wiggling and thrashing up +and over a little neck of water that ran out of the pond.</p> + +<p>On one side this action, and on the other an apparently aimless moving +through rocks and sodden branches in the water. Undoubtedly there was +an old, hidden culvert that ran under the bank, but the underground +passage must have been partly clogged and certainly very small. So +the alewives that came into Quivett Creek spawned in that pond. Most +of them had probably been hatched there. The flow from the sea had a +logical termination. What else, the fish might ask me, had I expected?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[Pgs 141-142]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XIV">XIV<br><br> +Spawning: the Dance</h2> +</div> + + +<p>During the third week in May, when the run seemed about over I had +still not seen them spawning, although I had heard a description of it +from my local authority, Mr. Alexander.</p> + +<p>“A kind of swish dance is what they do,” said he, giving a hula-hula +motion with his hands.</p> + +<p>Harry also described them as sidling up at the shallow edges of the +ponds, rocking as you would rock a baby; and then shooting out the +spawn, their fins lifting up with the effort. The pond suckers, as he +related it, would swim up to grab the eggs almost as soon as they came +out of their bellies.</p> + +<p>What about that school I had seen running along the shore of the Upper +Mill Pond?</p> + +<p>“Well, they were kind of getting acquainted, you know. Just cuddling +together!”</p> + +<p>This was on May 25, as I have it in my notes, and when I started out +from the Herring Run to walk up to the ponds above it, Salvadore was +still there with his truck, barrels, and net; but he said he was going +to quit soon and deal in some redfish (another name<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span> for rosefish, +or ocean perch). The redfish made tougher, better bait for lobsters +anyway. While he had been in Brewster he had netted forty barrels a day +on the average, sometimes as many as eighty, but he told me that he +had not yet reached the four-hundred mark. One barrel, weighing some +two hundred pounds, might contain around three hundred fish or more, +so that about 120,000 alewives might be pulled out of Stony Brook in a +season, though I imagine this is a very low estimate. I have heard it +said that there are a potential two thousand barrels in the Brewster +run during the full season, taking all fish. In an abundant year +there might be close to six or seven hundred thousand adult alewives +migrating up the brook. Even so, subtracting the mortality, the +necessary minimum of fish allowed through the gate during the week have +a very heavy job to do to assure the return of hundreds of thousands of +their race in three and four years’ time.</p> + +<p>Because of some kind of alewife caution or deliberation, not enough of +them were going into the seining pool to make a good haul. They were +delaying on the down side of the road. Salvadore waded in with his +rubber boots on to drive them under and through the bridge, but they +hardly budged, so he crouched down with little more than three feet +of height for body room, and swashed in after them. They skittered +before him, landing with a simultaneous series of quick dashes into the +pool.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span></p> + +<p>It was a warm day. There was a new lassitude in the air, and the sweet +smell of lilacs. The gulls were gone that had flocked in quarreling +and screaming when the run was heaviest, hovering and rising over the +waters and their hordes of fish, bold enough sometimes to perch on the +bridge over the run, looking very large, with their pale-yellow eyes +glaring as naked as stone.</p> + +<p>Once I saw a herring gull display its fantastic eating capacity by +dropping down into the fish ladder, grabbing an alewife, and swallowing +it whole. Down went the fat, foot-long fish in a few gulps, headfirst +so that neither scales nor sawbelly would stop the progress. Then the +loaded gull flew very heavily away as I came up, the alewife’s tail +having barely disappeared.</p> + +<p>Now, in place of gulls, there were a few dove-gray, black and white +quawks perched on the outer branches of overhanging trees like heavy +sculptured ornaments, or standing in the water with their spear-head +bills ready poised for a frog or small fish. I have heard it said, +incidentally, that these night herons keep the gulls away. I have never +witnessed any aggressive action between the two races. On the whole +they seem to respect each other’s territory and to keep their distance +from each other; but I have seen quawks and gulls together waiting for +little alewives on the flats beyond Paine’s Creek.</p> + +<p>In the brook there were still some fish ascending,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span> but many more were +going back. It is a little hard to tell the difference at first, since +both face up against the current, but the returning alewives gradually +drop back, and many of them have the characteristic white marks on them +of fresh-water fungus infection. The strain of spawning and using up +their store of fat makes them thin, slow, and weary. They have lost a +good deal of their vigor, though not to the extent of preventing the +return journey.</p> + +<p>In spite of this “spring fever” day it was not that the greatness of +events was over ... only the first great toppling of a wave, only the +first violent forwardness with its illimitable sounds and changes. +There was a steadier greenness on the trees, and blossoms on the +high lilacs. The run waters went on with a constant wail and wah, if +without the turbulence of a few weeks earlier. I left the Herring Run +and walked up into the warm pine woods to try and find the culminative +point of the migration.</p> + +<p>A light wind was running straight down the long surfaces of the +Upper Mill Pond when I reached it, and little waves scudded ahead. I +walked on the north side where sandy banks descended to the shore, +shaded by pitch pines and covered with viburnum bushes and bearberry, +a pink-blossomed, shiny-leaved ground cover locally known as “hog +cranberry.” There were stretches of amber sand, small stones, or +gravel, along the pond’s edge. A fat sucker jumped for a fly and +crashed heavily back into the water.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span></p> + +<p>All at once I heard a light thrashing and noticed a large water +snake under a blueberry bush. It had dropped a small salamander that +was twisting over and over on the ground, its damp body collecting +bits and shreds of dry leaves. As I came up, the snake hung over a +low-lying branch and watched me, its mouth slightly open with a little +toothed white and pink jawline showing. I picked up the salamander and +dropped it into the pond, where it hesitated for a few seconds and +then wiggled away into a patch of green ooze and deeper water. With a +stick, I tossed the snake twenty feet away, thus establishing myself as +universal arbitrator.</p> + +<p>As I walked and watched along the shore I saw one group of alewives, +and then another, running by, looking light-colored and bright in the +sunny water. Sometimes these groups seemed to be made up of one female +escorted by several males, but the closer they came to shore the more +intermingled they were, and it was not clear to me that this was a +definite pattern. When she is running upstream, the female’s eggs +are unripe, but ripen soon after arrival in the ponds, provided the +water temperature is high enough—between 55 and 60 degrees may be the +average spawning temperature during the big April and early May runs. +As to the act of spawning, the female, depending on her size, deposits +anywhere between sixty thousand and a hundred thousand eggs (each some +0.05 inches in diameter) in shallow places; and because they are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span> +sticky they adhere to gravel, sticks, stones, or whatever they settle +on. The males, who have been following the females closely, immediately +cover the eggs with milt, thrashing and scattering it with their tails. +The eggs hatch out in some six days’ time when the water is at 60 +degrees, and in three days or less at 72.</p> + +<p>When I first watched them spawn I saw a group of alewives run, circle, +and weave offshore, sometimes slowing up at deeper holes on the bottom, +or behind rock-protected water, and then come in close, with one quick +impulse. They raced in together to the gravelly, shallow edge, through +water not much more than ankle deep, with a sinewy, rippling motion. +Then in the shadows under an overhanging shrub there was a flipping, +whirling, and thrashing, a breaking of the surface. The female slapped +up against the side of a rock with a rising, shuddering motion of the +body as though it were shaking everything out of it, while the others +simultaneously writhed, coiled, thrashed tails, and shimmered through. +Then it seemed to me that there were a few seconds in which they slowly +reassembled their senses to go elsewhere. The word “deposit” was hardly +active enough.</p> + +<p>A fat pond sucker was hanging around the center of activity, following +the alewives slowly like a small sunken log. It was obvious that eggs, +to this crude, crass, lazy taster of a fish, were the ultimate delicacy.</p> + +<p>There were other occasions when the alewives, in greater numbers, +swam next to the shore, spawning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span> in what might have been concentric +groups for several hundred yards. Some at the edge would be coiling +and thrashing while others swam on or circled back. The fish that were +farther out in the pond ran nervously, with eager movements, making +quick turns as if reconnoitering, or practicing for a culminating +turn. They collected suddenly when spawning, with quick, spontaneous +decision. I noticed that the males while running in would often +shoulder or press the females on. The characteristic thrashing whirl +they make is sudden and amazing, almost like a pinwheel in a short +burst.</p> + +<p>Their attendants, the pond suckers, would loll in the slow rock of the +pond waters. They are large, soft-looking fish, with round, pink fins, +and white, fleshy lower lips with which they go nibbling and nuzzling +with snail-like speed over the bottom. The alewives by contrast are +small, gray, and quick. If alewife eggs are deposited between rocks the +suckers go down in after them, and, if the water is shallow enough, +present the odd picture of a large topheavy body sticking down with its +tail above the surface.</p> + +<p>It is not I think, incongruous to apply the word love to a cold-blooded +fish. In this spawning act there is an imperative rhythm, with grace in +its preparation and power in its fulfillment.</p> + +<p>Sometimes the war cry of gulls, in small flocks settling on the shore +waters or rising up, told me where the alewives were, but most of the +time I found them<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span> in accustomed places like that stretch of shore on +the Upper Mill Pond. Sometimes I could hear them splashing before I saw +them. They seemed to be more inclined to spawn when the water was not +too rough. On the other hand, I watched them spawning when the ponds +were very choppy and the small waves were pushing them as they thrashed +at the edge. Once, on the south side of the pond, I noticed the suckers +before the alewives. There were twenty or more lined up as if they were +giving the bottom a slow going over. When groups of alewives ran in and +characteristically heaved, flipped, and writhed at the edge, the big +suckers would move up closer. They were so oblivious to anything but +their slow gluttony that I could tap them on the head with a stick.</p> + +<p>Occasionally a couple of alewives would give a sucker a little rush, a +brief chase, as much, so it looked, by way of sport as aggressiveness. +They were certainly incapable of damaging it very much, and it could +not be driven away for long. An overdose of suckers in any one area +seemed to discourage the alewives a little and make them move on, but +on the whole they too were so intent on what they were doing that they +hardly noticed anything else. They had to fulfill themselves; then, +stunned, go on. The eggs were expendable.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pgs 151-152]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XV">XV<br><br> +The Return</h2> +</div> + + +<p>After the first week in June there were very few if any alewives coming +up over the dam at the head of the run. An increasing number, on the +other hand, were going down, and I could find very few in the ponds. I +was to see them returning well on in July, which indicates that while +many, perhaps a majority, will leave the ponds a few days or a week +after spawning, others may stay there for weeks longer. For reasons +known only to the individual fish, occasional strays have been found +lingering in fresh water well into the winter.</p> + +<p>On the morning of June 10, after a lapse of a few days in which I +had seen only a few returning, a boy who was weekending on the Upper +Mill Pond told me he had seen thousands go by in the direction of the +Herring Run. So they were still schooling for the return to salt water, +progressing again by accumulative motion. In a few weeks some of the +little ones, hatched out earlier, would start down too.</p> + +<p>I stood on a rock and looked down into the water along that peaceful +stretch above the dam. This is an<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span> area where Indians gathered and +camped when the alewives were running, spearing them, or taking them +with nets made out of reeds. Many Indian artifacts have been found on +the surrounding slopes. On this June day insects were settling down +on the still surface. A shower was due—the air heavy. An alewife +slanted slowly up to the surface and then dropped down again. It left +a perfect circle behind it that gently widened over the blended images +of clouds, leaves, and rocks. Then as other small circles, raindrops +falling, began to show on the water, a belt of flying herons passed in +reflection. A breeze corrugated the surface slightly and the fish swam +slowly on toward the roar of the seaward-casting falls.</p> + +<p>The returning migrants now have a choice between two outlets: one at +the top of the fish ladder, and the other at a board dam where the +water drops into a long pool above the old mill. At the far end of the +pool the waters fall again a short but precipitous distance, often +roaring full and hard down the rocky slope into the seining pool. +The alewives use both outlets, but the majority seem to prefer the +falling second stream to the ladder by which they came up, perhaps +because it is the point of greatest flow. Where they drop down over +the falls it looks to the proportionate, or disproportionate, senses +of a human being almost suicidal. Most go over tail first. Then they +appear to be dashed headlong down the jagged incline that ends in rocky +narrows going off at an angle to the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span> pool. One after another they +flip and fall, their bodies bent like bows, and flash finally, swift +and vibrant—not, surprisingly, having been broken to pieces—at the +bottom. Occasionally a fish near the end of the slope will frantically +try to skitter back up. Presumably it is trying to reduce the speed +at which the ground is going by it, in the way a man tries to brake +himself when running downhill. But this almost helter-skelter falling +reveals almost as much of the alewife’s supple strength as its leaping +up against the current.</p> + +<p>As June went on and polliwogs turned to frogs, the leaves came fully +out, clover and buttercups were blooming, and the pond algae had +increased at a fast rate so that a thick green scum gathered behind the +dam, and the pond waters were yellow-green. Still you could see the +fish gathering at intervals massed sometimes fifty feet or more behind +the two outlets. There is a small wooden footbridge over the board dam +at the head of the pool. When I lay down on the bridge and looked under +at the curved lip of the water I could see the fish gathering behind. +Against the steady rush and whine I could hear a dull, deep change in +sound as the fish suddenly turned and plummeted over. Their bodies, +enlarged behind a green curve of water, had a metallic sheen, a dull +silver, as they would wheel in, loom up, and drop away. I came back at +night, and could still hear that heavy sound in this lens, or gong, of +water.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p> + +<p>In each new phase of migrant action there is an old ceremony. The +alewives approach the dam, in groups of varying sizes. They circle, +withdraw, and swim back again. Some of them swim between the two +outlets as if to decide which one to take. Coming closer, they show +an increasing animation, a quicker circling and flipping, as if the +outward pull of the water resulted in a more vital excitement between +them. After many more starts and withdrawals, lasting anywhere from +fifteen minutes to an hour or more from the approach of a given group, +or school—using that term in the sense of larger numbers—one or more +fish will drop over, and then the rest will follow.</p> + +<p>I watched one school making these ceremonious retreats and approaches +for two hours. When they finally started dropping over I counted some +fifty fish a minute for about fifty-five minutes, until there were only +three left. This remaining three must have lacked the common stimulus +to go, the rhythm of sufficient numbers, and they stayed behind, as +more fish began to draw in closer from the pond. I have seen this +often. Sometimes seven, nine, and up makes enough of a group to start +over on its own; very occasionally one alewife will go it alone; but it +does seem as if a certain variable minimum will not take the move upon +itself.</p> + +<p>Though a single fish may be the first to go over, or to advance +upstream, it is hard, from my observation, to attribute any leadership +to individuals, male or<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span> female. The crowd provides its own pressure +and momentum. Perhaps the circling of these groups and schools, and +their dropping over, might be analogous, though it is a looser motion, +to a flock of sandpipers flying off simultaneously as if they were +cast out by a lithe, invisible wire, and then turning on an instant, +glinting in the sun. The impulse is in the rhythmic unity of the group, +even though in the case of the fish some may be left off or behind +until they are rejoined in it.</p> + +<p>The speed at which they drop over seems to depend on the size and +pressure of the oncoming school—population pressure, in other words, +unless pressure of numbers is a better term, which must also affect +the timing of their entry from the sea. Sometimes they go over: +one—two—three—four—one a second; but if the group is small the rate +may be ten to twenty a minute. Finally there are those few fish left +behind that circle around at the outlet or turn back into deeper water +where another school will be coming up.</p> + +<p>All morning, as the alewives massed, circled, and dropped, there was +one fish that kept wandering through and over the others in a puzzling +way. It was a conspicuously darker color, which is characteristic +of blindness, as I learned later on. Its loss of sight, then, had +deprived it to some degree of the community action, though it had been +able to feel its way toward the outlet. Occasionally one that looked +exceptionally tired and slow would drop over the falls<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span> by itself. I +noticed also that those which were scarred and infected seemed to have +lost some of the fire of communication.</p> + +<p>To the casual eye the spent fish may not look any thinner or weaker +than the rest, though when they hit the seining pool they are obviously +in no hurry to move on, but circle slowly around it for some time. +Their flesh, for the human carnivore, is of poorer quality than when +they came in from salt water. Going back to history again, it seems +that the recipients of alewives in the Caribbeans were not always +pleased with the product. There were complaints in the eighteenth +century, as I have indicated, and in the early nineteenth as well, +when plantation owners in the West Indies objected that this food was +doing bad things to their slaves. They said that alewives taken when +they were going downriver after spawning were “poison fish,” and “the +very worst food that can be given to slaves, as it both disheartens +them, keeps them continually murmuring, and brings on those scorbutic +diseases so common among negroes in that climate.”</p> + +<p>Bad food or not, they were in all things directional, with the water +and the season, moving on and out, taking the rhythms of perpetuation +with them, these “reflex machines,” bearers of strong tides. They had +been giving me something of a lesson in cosmic weather, though I was +still a hopeless beginner. From one place, one road, around one circle, +they had led<span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span> me through so much variety that I was left to wonder at +my omissions. The man-made world must still have far to go to learn its +inner and outer relations to a greater, expanding world of lives that +are given, not made.</p> + +<p>What further connections are there, say, between the sun and sight, +between our tactile senses and the medium of earth and air in which +we are born, between the moon and the tides and the rhythms of water +and of blood? Who knows more about the universe—I with my conscious +measurements, my personal faltering, or the poor fish with its +unthinking precision through the various unknown? Can we not combine? +In any case, whatever human beings decide about what is effective or +ineffective, what shall stay or what shall go, the alewives know where +they live.</p> + +<p>The crowd in the seining pool moved slowly, in a wide circle around +its rim. Most of their inland enemies had gone now. The human hunters +had driven away. The herring gulls had flown to other feeding grounds. +Not that one enemy or another made much difference to them, except in +terms of sudden fear. Like their eggs, they were expendable. Nature’s +ruthlessness, the using and the building up of that which fed and that +which was food, would keep them on the way of primordial energy. For +the same reason they were also spenders—one of the great sacrificial +coinages of the living world.</p> + +<p>Still this point in their migration before the return<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span> to salt water +might be called a place of demobilization, a separation center. They +swam slowly around in the pool, passing between each other, but always +a part of the circle, each fish with its body and its large black +eyes leading forward, obedient to it. They dispersed very gradually +throughout the day. One small group after another broke off, sparks +from a wheel, and the fish let themselves be carried back down the +brook where the outlet of the pool led under the road. In the run +below where they went back step by step to the sea—whose pull was in +them—they faced up against the current, their orientation, with a +tired, slow weaving. I noticed a little perch attendant on them. It ran +down backward with the large procession, giving the alewives a look of +ceremonial grandeur. I have seen sunfish join up too, although there +could be a point on the approach to brackish water when they decide +that home life is better than parades. These motions must be catching, +communicating to other lives and races than those in which they +originate. All have their way stations, or orbits, along a route that +is being followed out with primal grace and power.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[Pgs 161-162]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVI">XVI<br><br> +The Young Follow After</h2> +</div> + + +<p>When the last adult alewife of the season drops down Stony Brook for +the tidal inlet and the sea, it has left the renewal of its continuity +and motion behind it. The little alewives follow out the route of their +elders with a silent animism, sent by ancient habit and unknown need. +The repetitive ways of the anadromous fish come out of geologic time. +On the long track since then, the adults, reaching their spawning +grounds, have had the drive of the sperm toward the egg. From the top +of a falls to the depth of the sea there are equivalent lifts and falls +in their own being. The young, tiny and perishable though they may be, +have the same inalienable motion in them.</p> + +<p>After hatching, young alewives form dense schools, and begin to feed +on the plankton—tiny organisms and plant life—in the pond waters. +Occasionally they can be seen flipping on the surface. They are subject +to attack by all kinds of predators: perch, pickerel, frogs, herons, +kingfishers, water snakes, and many others, from the time they are out +of the egg. Landlocked waters are often stocked with spawning<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span> alewives +for that very reason. The fry make an excellent diet for such popular +game fish as bass, trout, and salmon.</p> + +<p>The survivors begin to move out of the ponds about the beginning of +July. In other areas I have heard that the majority do not start +down until September. The first time I saw them was on the second +of July, when they were being drawn down by the thousands through +the dam opening at the head of the fishway. They were scarcely over +an inch long, and as they came in from the ponds they reflected the +summer-green of the water. Their eyes seemed huge in proportion to +the size of their bodies. They were poured down the boiling water +of the ladder, tossed around like chips and slivers, spilled down +helter-skelter; but where the current slowed, farther down the brook, +they held together in the fashion of their race.</p> + +<p>There is an account, in a <cite>Report of the Alewife Fisheries of +Massachusetts</cite>, 1921, of some alewives hatched out in the +fisheries at Sandwich, Massachusetts, in June of 1919. The eggs were +put in water of 72 degrees Fahrenheit and half of the lot, in that warm +temperature, were hatched in only forty-eight hours. “In the surface +water were thousands of tiny alewives with food sacs nearly transparent +in appearance, and with tails resembling fine silk threads. The tiny +creatures, about one-fifth of an inch in length, wiggled through the +water with surprising activity. The eyes in both the egg and the +hatched fish were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</span> but faintly visible. At the end of ninety-six hours +their size had increased considerably, the outline of the yolk sac and +the body was plainly marked, and the eyes showed prominently. By this +time all the eggs had hatched. In cold water the period of development +is retarded proportionately to the lowering of the temperature.”</p> + +<p>In a month the young alewives were about three-fifths of an inch long +and by autumn between two and four inches. At three-fifths of an inch +they look more like a sand eel than an alewife—an observation quoted +in the same report. When they are an inch and a fifth long they look +more like the adults. Their bodies are shorter at that size and they +have a large head and relatively large eyes. When they reach one and +two-fifths inches, about the size of those I saw, they look much the +same, but with the addition of the alewife’s sawbelly—“serrations of +the middle abdominal scales.”</p> + +<p>It may be that in times past little alewives have been unable to +migrate out of the waters in which they were hatched, and local races +of a landlocked variety were established. The landlocked alewives +are much dwarfed in comparison with the salt-water variety. Some +years ago there were a number of complaints from householders in New +York City that small fish were coming out of the faucets. The Deputy +Commissioner of the Department of Water Supply, Gas and Electricity, +referred the matter to the New<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</span> York Aquarium, which investigated and +found that these were none other than landlocked alewives: <i>Pomolobus +pseudoharengus</i>. They had been spawned in the Kensico Reservoir, +and in the autumn they passed through the 5/8-inch mesh of the screens +at the outlet. This might suggest the migrating habit of their ocean +cousins. A friend of mine, getting the parent stream theory turned +around, speculated as to whether a study might not show them returning +from the same faucets over a period of years!</p> + +<p>But no conclusive evidence was found that these fish were following +out any consistent migration. For a period of eight years during the +course of the survey hardly any fish were reported as dropping into the +kitchen sinks of New York.</p> + +<p>One interesting thing about the landlocked alewives is that they +are subject to mass mortalities, or “die offs,” for reasons yet +undecided. In some areas, like Cayuga Lake in New York State, this +happens occasionally, but in others, Lake Ontario, for example, fairly +regularly. This does not necessarily happen after spawning, so invites +no analogy to the west coast salmon. Many of the dead fish have not yet +reached sexual maturity.</p> + +<p>As to the normal, coastal migration of the fry from fresh to salt +water, why do they leave when they do? Is there any theory that can +account for these little fish suddenly moving out of the waters in +which they were born, so rich with the fresh-water food that gave<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</span> them +their initial growth? Are they fleeing their enemies? Yet the young of +the fresh-water fish are preyed upon too, and they stay behind.</p> + +<p>There is an explanation about salmon fry which has them gradually going +seaward in order to escape the brighter light in the shallow fresh +waters; but is there anything in the constitution of an alewife that +is not accustomed to sunlit waters? They do not escape them so much +as seek them, because of their warmer temperature. Aside from that, +I would think, from my own observation, and the comments of others, +that they have no preference between the dark and light along their +way—they run through both—but do not like a sudden change. For +example, they waited all one morning before coming out of the shaded +waters under Stony Brook Road to go into the brightness of the seining +pool, only moving when a shadow fell across it that was cast by the old +mill.</p> + +<p>If the adults swim toward the coast in the spring because of some +change in their make-up consonant with changes in the waters where they +swim, is there also some change in food and temperature which makes +the young start to leave fresh water at a particular time? The little +alewives are creatures of such sensitivity to their medium, to its +changes, and to what they eat, that a factor in the timing of their +migration might be some internal discomfort, or so it was suggested +to me. To begin to find out, a scientist would have to follow all the +stages of a little<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</span> alewife’s birth and growth, tracing where it goes, +what it eats, and what the temperature, depth, and density of the +water is along the way. He would also have to do this for every age +group that leaves the three ponds from July through October, analyzed +pond by pond, since conditions differ in each one. During this period +the little fish leave at all stages in the seasonal development of +the ponds, while not all of one age group seem to go with the others. +Many appear to stay in the ponds for several months. So attempting +consistency with such findings might result in more indigestion for the +investigator than the fish themselves.</p> + +<p>From the outward evidence all I can say is that these little ones do +not start schooling to move out of the ponds until they are over an +inch in length. I have seen them, still not much more than pin size, +circling a few hundred yards above the outlet, but neither swimming +with the flow nor letting themselves be drifted on. Logically then, the +point at which they are stimulated to leave must coincide with growth, +the rate of which depends on food and temperature in the ponds.</p> + +<p>Warm-water ponds are more favorable to growth than cold-water ponds. +They turn out better fish, larger and healthier. By the same token a +cold spring and summer will result in a poorer crop of alewives. They +will probably be hatched later. The colder pond waters will bring +down the “plankton bloom,” in other words less food for the fish. As +a result, young<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</span> alewives going to salt water that year will be +smaller, weaker, more subject to disease, and less able to escape their +enemies.</p> + +<p>It is just possible, then, that some spring when the annual run of +alewives is smaller than usual, for no apparent reason, you might find +an answer to the mystery in a cold season, four years before.</p> + +<p>After the first young alewives have moved out, having attained the size +and response necessary for it, you can see a gradual increase in size +from early summer until autumn. One of the unsolved questions is why +the earliest to go will not stay longer in the ponds. Why not relax, if +a fish can, and eat well until autumn, as in fact large numbers of them +do. Were they nearest the outlet? Perhaps the larger fish that begin to +appear later on were hatched earlier and therefore came from farther +back in the chain of ponds.</p> + +<p>Of course there is nothing rigid about their timetable, nothing exact +about their migratory behavior. Whatever stimulates it, their new +momentum takes the form of a gradual circling out. I have heard that +in some areas they will start down and then return when they can swim +back up the outlet, if the force of the water is not too strong for +them. They may be in a state of indecisive action for a while, or so +it sounds, but most of them are moved to go at some time before winter +sets in, though there have been many exceptions to the rule. John +Burns, of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</span> Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries, tells me +that he saw a “generous school of fry” one January, coming down under +the ice of a frozen pond at Bournedale.</p> + +<p>Perhaps this phenomenon of migration in the young fish is not +susceptible of final analysis. Might that be because it is so simple, +however complex in detail and circumstance, simple though intangible in +the life rhythm it embodies? However slow or fast their response to it +may be, the little fish must be obeying an organic, directional drive +that goes back beyond history. As a part of their growing up they may +develop the same kind of built-in response to the waters in which they +find themselves as their parents schooling offshore in the spring; and +they come to have an intercommunication that knows its way. It is not +the adult call of sexual maturity that moves them, and yet they must +have a biological need to start out together on the same living track.</p> + +<p>I recognize how much an amateur may leave out of his calculations, and +only proffer my individual guess that they follow the outward flow of +the ponds when they grow to feel a rhythmic, habitual motion in them +that responds to it and that belongs in its balance to the whole race +of alewives between land and sea. The fresh-water minnows stay where +they are, no matter how hard the pull of the waters may be. I have seen +them lazing in the shallows while a school of little alewives darted +over them, restlessly moving<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</span> on. And as I followed the young migrants +I saw in them a roaming, roving sweep like sea birds made for distant +journeys.</p> + +<p>I watched them coming down from July through October and into November, +from the lush green of early summer to the red and brown of dry weeks +in August, and on to the cool days of autumn when the sea turned a +brighter blue and winds and clouds blew full—all the way almost to +the hardening in of winter and its sullen skies. The alewife is a part +of the life of Stony Brook and the ponds above it for at least seven +months out of the year. And the fact that so many return again to the +particularity, the uniqueness of these waters is a reminder of the +power of living form and place together, the welding of those strands +of near and far in the body of a fish, the body of the world. The fish +egg rolls around on a greater axis than its own.</p> + +<p>So the first of the tiny fish came down by the thousands during the +first week in July. After that there was hardly a day until the middle +of August when there were not at least a few to be seen in the brook. +Gradually they grew larger, so that in August they were up to two +inches on the average. The next big movement, after an August lull, +began on September 6 and 7. Their size by then had increased to between +two and two and one-half inches. A few were considerably larger. I +measured one at the surprising<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</span> length of four and one-half inches, and +another, which escaped my net, looked to be well over five.</p> + +<p>It was easy enough to get a sampling, because they had a tendency, +owing to their very light weight perhaps, to be caught at the bottom of +the little falls that poured out of each resting pool in the ladder. +They were tossed, turned, tumbled in the bubbling water, flung out from +it but returning to be tossed again. On the surface of that turbulence +they sometimes managed like gulls riding drafts of wind, but then they +would drop down and under and be carried off to the edge once more. +This would go on for a long time, although they were very gradually +dropping down the brook. Because of this tendency of theirs I was able +to scoop them out of the falls with a sieve—although the larger they +were the more elusive.</p> + +<p>I noticed their absence during a number of cloudy and rainy days in +September and their return when the sun shone; which is not to say that +I did not see them on overcast days too, but the good days started them +going. They responded to warmth like the adults. Beginning in October +the next schools of fish coming down had increased in size, so that the +average seemed to have gone up to about two and three-quarters to three +inches. This movement, off and on, kept up until the end of the month. +I saw one last small group coming in to the upper falls on November 16.</p> + +<p>In the larger individuals I noticed a wider radius<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</span> of response, even +though they circled with fish much smaller than themselves. They were +faster. They were gaining more control, and more apparent ability to +see what was coming, my hand or sieve, for example, and to avoid it. +These later age groups were not tossed downstream so helplessly as the +earlier one-and-a-half-inchers had been. They showed more strength +against the current. Yet the motion of them all was consistent with +what I had seen in the adults going the same course.</p> + +<p>I would see a little gray school of fish circling above the dam between +the two outlets, with a beautiful, light swinging, and running by. +There might be a sudden split in the middle of them when a leaf fell +or a dragonfly touched close to the surface of the water. Then one or +two of the tiny fish would fall back over the outlet with an almost +electric beat, while the rest stayed. Then four or five more dropped +over, and suddenly all the rest spilled over after them. They were +tumbled down the first steep ladder; then they followed out the longer +stretches farther on, sometimes running with the current, sometimes +turning back against it; and on the down side of the road they were +caught in the in-boiling waters of the second fishway, before the +uninterrupted flow ahead.</p> + +<p>A minority came down the side or waste stream instead of swimming down +the second fishway, and, because they were not contained there as they +were in the resting pools, I could see more clearly what<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</span> happened to +them as they approached a falls. The current was consistently smooth +and swift, but it was a long, level, calm stretch of water. I watched +them swimming straight down with it and then, quite close to the +sudden tug of the high falls, they would turn back. They felt it, and +had a quick response to it. It was as though they suddenly had their +equilibrium tested, and that they were like trapeze artists feeling +wrists, body, and rope, before swinging out and over.</p> + +<p>Then down where Stony Brook was broad, shallow, and swift, they ran, +or were carried on, like sticks and leaves. Where the water lost some +of its force they swam up against it, in little schools together, or +they swam off to the side of the main flow for a while, sometimes +lingering in deeper water, or the shelter of rocks and banks, but +continually returning to it, always a part of that outward seagoing +rhythm. Gradually they traversed the swirling, eddying, long-stretching +waters. They moved toward the influence of the tides where the brook +ran through the marshes. They held position or circled back when the +brackish water came in against them. Finally they swam, or were pulled +out, from Paine’s Creek on an ebb tide, and moved toward the new +shelter of the sea and its many dangers.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[Pgs 175-176]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVII">XVII<br><br> +The Power of Fragility</h2> +</div> + + +<p>I think one of the greatest challenges is to watch each bounded living +thing with care for its particularity, as far as we can go, to find +out we can go no farther. Flower, fish or leaf, child or man—they +take none of our suggestions as to rules. Each has a strong language +that we never quite learn. No matter how many times I try to describe +the alewife by the uses of human speech, or classify its habits, its +intrinsic perfection resists me. It is <i>something else</i>. It goes +on defying my own inquiring sense of mystery.</p> + +<p>The beauty of a little alewife held between the fingers, struggling +out of water, dying, by human arbitrary reach, becomes the subject of +thought and language, creative protestation in themselves. But the +two-inch creature makes a mightier protest than my conscious sight +of it ... wild, fragile, vibrant, shivering with a quickness that +will die out in a matter of seconds. It is a marvelously knit animal, +compact, flexible, shining, with its tiny meshed scales that interlock +the light, iridescent silver like the adults, green, yellow, purple, +receiving earth and sky. And the eyes,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</span> wholly black, interminably +deep. By a chance scoop of my hand it is out in the long killing air, +the little vibrancy out with the bird-gray clouds, a leashed arrow +straining for the stars, that have their running too in the circle of +immensity.</p> + +<p>Fragile they are, and powerful, a wonderful work of which so many are +made as to afford them death as well as life. Let us say, arbitrarily, +that 150,000 female alewives lay their eggs in the ponds above Stony +Brook each year. After the pond suckers take their share and the +remaining eggs hatch out, then the young alewives run the gauntlet +of their first few days and weeks of life. The toll taken would seem +incredible if it were not also natural and expected. From billions the +young are reduced to millions.</p> + +<p>If a run is to keep up over the years, there has to be an annual +survival, or “escapement,” of somewhere between 3 and 7 per cent. Say +a hundred million hatched, out of the original nine billion eggs. Five +per cent of that, or five million, have to reach salt water in order to +assure a normal spawning migration in three or four years’ time. From +that figure, of course, you subtract the alewife mortality during their +years of growth in the sea. I claim nothing for my calculations, but, +rough as they are, they may help to indicate how much potential goes +into the end result.</p> + +<p>It is not only the alewives that are provided for by these great +numbers, but the predators which hunt them. The alewives are only part +of a great complex<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</span> of need. Sometimes I have watched the fry as they +swam out across the Brewster flats on an ebb tide, running in shallow +water from the mouth of Paine’s Creek. In September, before they have +migrated south, crowds of terns, along with the resident herring gulls +and ring-billed gulls, would be hovering over the water and diving or +flocking in as the alewives appeared. I watched the constant, sinewy +beat of their wings as they held against a west wind. The sky was +swept way up with long cirrus clouds. The young alewives were running +into death and beyond it, in a windy world that teemed with risk and +creation.</p> + +<p>A friend of mine, who worked in the vicinity some years ago, watched +the tiny fish coming down above the old mill one autumn day. He saw +some night herons standing in the lip of the dam gobbling the “poor +little devils” up as they went over. He was amazed at their stomach +capacity. Then he noticed that at the rocky falls where the pool ended +above the water wheel and seining pool only a few were dropping over +as compared to the thousands coming in from the pond, and the toll +the quawks took did not account for it. Somehow, somewhere, in this +short stretch of water, they were disappearing into a gulf, or, more +properly, a maw. It didn’t seem right. It made him angry, although: +“You can’t get mad at nature because that’s the way it is.” He got a +hook and line, baited it, threw it into the pool; and in two hours he +had fished out seventy-six eels.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</span></p> + +<p>These slithering, hoselike creatures are still there in season waiting +to prey on the fish. It does not take long as a rule to see one coming +up at the edge of the bank, though I have never seen them in any +great quantity, because they usually lie hidden in the muddy bottom. +Sometimes you can see a small group of eels of varying sizes in one +of the resting pools of the fishway below the road, where the little +alewives as they go down must almost fall into their mouths. With +broad-ribboned tails on one end of their long-finned bodies and pointed +snouts on the other, they weave and flip over, arch and float in the +water. Partly because of the narrow space, and their tendency to stay +or be caught in the turbulent pools, many of the little fish cannot +avoid being eaten. They have only the safety of numbers.</p> + +<p>Having developed a certain affection for the race by this time, I must +say I had feelings of pity for these little ones, helplessly tossed +in and out of death. They <i>are</i> fragile, like the young of other +animals. They will not last more than about three-quarters of a minute +out of water. But they are not ones to know or care whether I think +of them or not. They are parts of a great ordered hunger, and a vast +provision for things. They are both victims and executioners, the +feeders and the fed upon, in the intercommunication of every single +plant and animal in the natural world. There is nothing for affection +in that order perhaps,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</span> unless we conceive of it in terms of love as +well as annihilation.</p> + +<p>I have followed them out and seen where their consistent motion, their +automatic reaction to the waters they swim in, has brought them to +grief. It serves for survival and also for disaster. When the young +alewives get out to salt water on an ebb tide, they are not able to +calculate how long it will last, or so we presume, and whether they +should move out soon or stay behind. The result is that many are left +stranded and wildly skittering in the rivulets that thread the sandy +flats at extreme low tide. From the time the outgoing waters of Paine’s +Creek begin to get low, they are also subject to attack by crowds of +herons and gulls—but supposing they survive that and still have a +chance in a matter of an hour or an hour and a half to reach deeper +water? It is very often the case that because of their habit of heading +back against the current they delay too long and lose their chance of +escape. They are caught high and dry on the sand or in water so shallow +that they are unable to move on, and so are easy prey for the birds. I +have followed them through low water and seen them turn back, just as +they had a chance to follow one waning current to join another and so +out to safety; but when I use the word safety I have to remind myself +that the flow goes where it will.</p> + +<p>Now it is possible that you might interpret this behavior as a +reluctance to leave the inland waters.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</span> They have a drive in them to go +to salt water eventually, but they may be in no hurry. In some areas +they stay in estuaries or tributaries for a long time. At Paine’s Creek +and the channel above it they may have no alternative but to be carried +out on the ebb tide.</p> + +<p>When they finally reach Cape Cod Bay they probably school in fairly +shallow shoal areas where the water is warmest, inviting bass or +bluefish of course, to “come and get it.”</p> + +<p>“Shiners” some call them, confusing alewife fry with fresh-water +shiners, of which there are a great many species, but shine they do. In +the summer at low tide the bathers try to catch them with their hands, +or jump after them where they glitter in the pools. Sometimes there are +trails of the little fish left behind by those gluttons the gulls. In +death they look frail, limp, almost diaphanous. No longer so reflecting +and vibrant, their bodies are a pale silver-white like the underside +of fallen poplar leaves. Some of the heads are left uneaten along with +the headless bodies strewn in the rivulets along the ridged sands. +Sometimes their bodies are ripped down, gashed, leaving raw stripes on +them. These wounds look no less cruel and vivid because of their tiny +size.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[Pgs 183-184]</span></p> + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + +<div class="chapter"> +<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</span></p> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="XVIII">XVIII<br><br> +Going Out</h2> +</div> + + +<p>The first alewife I saw in early spring was wild and new to me, feeling +its way upcurrent alone, cautiously, as if testing out an old trail. +Down Stony Brook there were long patterns in the water dappled like +fish scales. In the sky above there were cloud tosses and wind turns +during a break toward spring that the fish itself exemplified. Later +on the fry in the apparently indiscriminate times they moved out and +headed for salt water seemed to be pulled as if by moon tides and +turning earth. The course I followed was full of natural complexity. +Forms and patterns were endlessly co-ordinate and suggestive, but with +the mystery of their making, the universal power, at once ordered, +vast, fluid, out of reach.</p> + +<p>The alewife migration taught me how to start. Had we been two and a +half miles up from salt water to the farthest pond, then back again, or +was it three thousand? I had learned that measurement was indefinite.</p> + +<p>I still knew next to nothing about their lives in salt water. And +what was ahead on land? I could expect<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</span> them to follow certain rules +of behavior. They would come back year after year unless the run was +so consistently overfished that the population dwindled. I knew where +to look for them now, and had some acquaintance with laws of supply +and demand, plus the effects of management or the lack of it. Perhaps +alewives could be expected in general to do what they had done before. +But those laws that lead all migrants on have more in store for us +than we can anticipate. The variations I had found in action and +circumstance, following those fish, variations like the changes of air +and water, leaves, grass and ground, intermoving light and shadow, were +unexpected and perpetual. If the alewives ever proved that anything was +static, it could only have been in me. There is no personifying the +unknown fish. I am not acquainted with it yet; but now we are on a run +together.</p> + +<p>The alewife is another of the amplifications and extensions of life. +In the flip of its body, its communicable “Let’s go,” it offers to +be followed. So that race with its recoil and approach, approach +and recoil, circling in consonance with the forces of the earth has +the lesson of migration in ourselves. When I watched them coming in +on their old, persistent track and felt so much in my own senses of +that exploring, through the growing and falling off of leaves, the +wind charging and easing off, the bright waters, I knew there was an +infinite sum in me of the unused. What <i>is</i> migration? Is it to +“pass from one place to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</span> another”—just that? And its causes may be the +need for food or to reproduce in season; but surely the term comprises +a great deal more.</p> + +<p>Whether the migration of animals seems random, or with definite intent, +it leads across the earth. All the studies made of individual species +result in new directions to be explored, new unknowns about the +actions of other lives, and the ways they follow. The mystery about +the travels of birds, eels, monarch butterflies, or alewives, is not +only a matter of routes or seasonal behavior. It has to do with an +internal response to this spinning globe and its unendingly creative +energies. As a result of a respectful regard for other animals we may +find that we are being led onto traveled ways that were once invisible +to us, and in their deep alliance with natural forces we find a new +depth in ourselves. This is the common ground for all living things, +where migration has in it the blood of contact, the winds and waters of +communication.</p> + +<p>On that July week when I first saw the young alewives coming down +through the outlet, the roads of Cape Cod were roaring and humming +with cars. The tourist season had suddenly come to its height. The +population of the Cape had jumped from 60,000 to 200,000 or more. There +were new demands, new pressures in the air. This was the yearly coming +on of an immense, expanding world, a migratory phenomenon<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</span> in itself. +Voices and prices were rising. Man’s abundance vied with the natural +summer.</p> + +<p>It was a hot day, though it had started out cool in the early morning, +with drifts of fog along the shore and patches of it through the inland +hollows. I had followed the alewife fry down from the Herring Run to +the shore road. They had become increasingly hard to find; but when I +reached the slow waters of the channel at Paine’s Creek I could see +multitudes of them heading in the direction of the Bay. Farther on +where the water ran out through the sands on the ebb tide there were +groups of them moving with it like little clouds.</p> + +<p>There were a few people walking on the flats in the distance where +herring gulls were yelping and an occasional tern gave a light, harsh +cry. An old panting setter dog lunged aimlessly across the sands, then +splashed through the shallow waters of the creek at its outlet. On the +beach a family crowd of bathers were listening to a portable radio +that noised out the baseball scores. Some of them got up and saw to +their children, or fell, sat down, or dove into the water at the edge +of the sands. They sounded low, then high, like the gulls—“Stop it!” +“Come on!” “Here, bunny” “Come back here!” “Jump in”—full of alarm, +solicitude, friendliness, irritation, communality.</p> + +<p>Back in the channel where the tiny fish, progeny of <i>Pomolobus +pseudoharengus</i>, were swimming on in the brown water, a couple of +growing, gawky<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</span> children, a boy and a girl, half round, half lean, were +pushing each other down, floundering and thrashing, while they laughed +and threatened each other, completely oblivious of the great migration +a few yards away. Or can anything be oblivious? I felt that I had come +to the middle of things.</p> +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> + + + + +<div class="transnote"> +<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Notes</b></p> + + + +<p>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the +public domain.</p> + +<p>Perceived typographical errors have been silently corrected.</p> + +<p>Illustrations have been moved nearer to the text to which they refer.</p> +</div> + + + + +<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77074 ***</div> +</body> +</html> + |