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. 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. 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 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