THE RUN [Illustration] [Illustration] [Illustration] The Run JOHN HAY Doubleday & Company, Inc. Garden City, New York 1959 _Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 59-11598_ _Copyright © 1959 by John Hay_ _All Rights Reserved_ _Printed in the United States of America_ _First Edition_ To my father and mother: Clarence Leonard Hay and Alice Appleton Hay FOREWORD This book mirrors an attempt to go farther afield, from one man’s center. Its writing represented a kind of migration in itself. We all undertake them, whether we like it or not, near or far. To follow on the track of fish, birds, or any other animals, might be both discovery and repetition, because it might mean to go exhaustively into the nature of being alive. The alewives helped to open the world for me, although the outcome of their circling was always beyond knowing. Above all this book is about one race which has an equal status with us in the great motions of this planet. Men may be highest, or so men say, but they cannot be complete without granting equal dignity to the unsurpassed uniqueness of other forms of life. One ought to be able to say: “Here is a life not mine. I am enriched.” Not a great deal has been written specifically about alewives, but the three published works I found most useful as an introduction were: _Fishes of the Gulf of Maine_, by Bigelow and Schroeder, published by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service; _A Report on the Alewife Fisheries of Massachusetts_, by David Belding, published by the Massachusetts Department of Conservation in 1921; and _Factors Influencing the Migration of Anadromous Fishes_, by Gerald Collins, Fishery Bulletin No. 73 of the Fish and Wildlife Service. I also received some helpful information from the Fisheries Research Board of Canada; and the Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries of the State of Maine, as well as its Department of Inland Fisheries and Game. Maine has been undertaking an important research and educational program with a view to rehabilitating the alewife fisheries. I am greatly indebted to Hal Turner of Woods Hole, Dr. David Belding of Welfleet, and John Burns of the Massachusetts Department of Natural Resources, Division of Marine Fisheries, for answering my questions so readily and courteously; and of course, much thanks to Harry Alexander. He guards a good run. CONTENTS Foreword 5 I Waiting Weather 9 II Arrival 19 III Dried Fish: an Informal History 27