The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-11
THE TOOTHSOME ALEWIVE DIET OF STATE PRISON Migratory Fishes Which AL ways Return With the
 Springtime.

This institution owns and operates a comprehensive seine. At this time | of the year, we are comforted With grateful change of diet, the eaten or our own net in our own waters. The alewives-the 'aloof' of the Indians are good fish. We like them So vel comed are these visitors that thousands never are permitted to return. We eagerly await their coming, and we re- gretfully mark the going or such as escape. These fish are as interesting as they are toothsome. No one knows their deep-sea home or habits. We do know that when April comes, the shining | sea-run thousands crowd back to their native waters with one accord and one purpose-to found a family Each egg producing fish is capable of layout of one hundred thousand of these run damental units. Not so many as the cod, that boasts of five millions; but enough. If the eggs of the aleWife were adaptable to culinary usage, the productive industry of the plain do- mestic hen might reasonably urge protective tariff Certainly, without such a fostering of home products, the now current price of tWenty-eight cents the dozen could be maintained only with extreme difficulty.
 The annual compelling desire of the alewife Is to get back to the spot where he first saw the water. Cola weather or an east wind delays his arrivals; but hO never fails to reach the home goal, or to die struggling against the last obstacle-in the last ditch, or at the last dam. Those innu- merable bones are their feet; well shod, it is true, but only their number and nexibility make it possible for the fish to crawl on his side over shallow places climb three-foot falls, leap over rocks, and reach the end of his jour- ney These skeleton accessories are often held to belittle his value as good fish. But it is not true, as has been derlsively said, that five thousand of thse fish would hardly suffice for two small men-although there might be fully twelve baskets of remainer fragments.
 By August--the old fish have long since gone-the finger's-length young sters find their way down stream and out to sea. What landmarks pr water marks they notice, what charts they have, how they contrive to return un- erringly the following season, no one knows. It is believed and almost prov ed that an alewife matched in ont stream, never tries to ascend another But just so surely as the ice melts, an( the water runs, and the April SUI shines, just so surely will he come bacl from his long journey, If he escape the perils of travel,
 These perils are complex and every
 where All his aquatic neighbors ar
 interested in him to their own seltisl ends. The frog and the turtle, tn duck and the eel. like those delectabl
 eggs. The perch and trout, the bull
 heads and pckerel, offer the readies
 of entertainment to the tingerlings The bluehsh and porpoise, the dogfis and the shark feast on the adult N normal meal beneath the surface c the sea is complete without alewirt He attends every submarine banquet not to eat but to be eaten. He Is de fenseless, and his only hope is the non altruistic hope that his neighbor ma be seized and he escape. .-Monthl Record, published by and for the in mates of the Connecticut state prisol