8i8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



entomologist's pincers, a fine, strong, close-meshed net, a brush for 

 applying alcohol to the creatures to stupefy them, and vials or 

 bottles of different sizes and shapes for holding the collections, 

 either dry or in spirit. Of special importance are practical ex- 

 periments on the physical modifications which animals of the 

 outer world may undergo when shut up for a long time in the 

 depths of caverns. Translated for The Popular Science Monthly 

 from La Nature. 



THE SHAD'S ANNUAL PILGRIMAGE. 



By a. H. GOUEAUD. 



AS the sun, at the close of his winter's recession, marches into 

 higher latitudes, he awakens in successive zones both ani- 

 mal and vegetable worlds to the full activities of their being, and 

 exerts, even in their remote and hidden seclusion, his influence 

 upon the finny inhabitants of the deep. With the northward ad- 

 vance of the vivifying orb, the shad {Alosa sapidilla), the alewife, 

 the menhaden, and other migratory fish wheel into line, and, 

 massed in solid column, approach our coasts, welcome heralds of 

 the spring. Beginning in Florida in January, the various colonies 

 have quitted their ocean abode, and in consecutive order are enter- 

 ing our rivers from the St. John's of Florida to the St. John of 

 New Brunswick. Burdened with the myriad germs of a coming 

 generation, it is the reproductive instinct that impels the shad to 

 quit the security of the deep sea that it may cradle its precious 

 freight in the rocking waters of a clear, running stream. 



In common with alewives and menhaden, shad are members of 

 the herring family, which fish they so far resemble that one of the 

 British species is called by the Scotch fisher folk "king of the 

 herrings," an appellation, however, more likely suggested by the 

 commonly entertained belief that the herring shoals are led by 

 one of enormous size, styled the king, and whose capture or de- 

 struction is presumed to occasion ill luck to the fishermen. The 

 herring family are in their retirement deep-sea fish, and it is likely 

 that the shad and menhaden winter off our coasts in depths of hun- 

 dreds of fathoms. At an average of perhaps a hundred miles from 

 the New Jersey and Long Island shore lies the edge of the great 

 continental plateau, beyond which the water deepens rapidly, and 

 there, at no great distance from its border, is probably the abid- 

 ing place of many of our finny migrants. The fish frequenting 

 each river are probably restricted to neighboring portions of the 

 ocean, it being very unlikely that the different colonies are grouped 

 together, as is generally supposed, in one gathering place. Deni- 

 zens of the shallows, as well as of the remote profound, they are 



