The American shad (Alosa sapidissima) is an economically and ecologically valuable anadromous species native to the Atlantic coast of North America, distributed from the St. Lawrence River in Canada to the St. Johns River in northern Florida. In the past few decades, American shad have been introduced as a candidate species into Chinese aquaculture because Chinese shad (Tenualosa reevesii) was endangered. Nowadays the farming scale and techniques for American shad have been greatly improved in China. However, little histological study has been done on the early development of A. sapidissima larvae, especially on the eye ontogeny. Here we employed the paraffin section and HE section methods in a histological observation of the eye ontogeny of A. sapidissima. The results showed that the optic vesicle was formed in 21 h 13 min after fertilization, and then developed into the optic cup in 26 h 23 min after fertilization. At 35 h 44min the undifferentiated retina and lens were visible. As the embryonic development continued, the cornea was formed in front of the retina, which consisted of single cuboidal epithelium. On Day after hatching (DAH) 2, the sclera composed of cartilage and outer fibrous layer became visible, followed by the appearance of choroid. On DAH 3 the iris was present, and the retina differentiated into ten layers including pigment epithelium, visual cell layer, outer limiting membrane, outer nuclear layer, outer plexiform layer, inner nuclear layer, inner plexiform layer, ganglion cell layer, nerve fibre layer and inter limiting membrane, and then the rod cells were clearly observed in the visual cell layer. On DAH 14, the cornea was well developed and differentiated into five layers that were stratified squamous epithelium, lamina elastic anterior, stroma layer, lamina elastic posterior and endothelium. On DAH 22, the choroid gland appeared. On DAH 26, the choroid completely differrntiated into three layers (argenteum layer, the choriocapillary layer and the pigment layer). In addition, the iris also underwent full differentiation and contained layers of endothelium, iris anterior, stroma, iris posterior and pigment. On DAH 45, the inner nuclear layer of renita developed into two layers of horizontal cells, and it was that moment when the development of the eye structure was complete.