THE BEST KINDS OF FISH FOR RIVERS. 129 



hither and thither after a stray fly or floating sub- 

 stance, is very amusing. 



As I have already said, although caught in rivers, 

 the whitebait can hardly be called a fresh-water fish. 



The Shad is a fish I have previously referred to. 

 There are two kinds of shad. Yarrel adopts for them 

 two names by which they were partly known before, 

 namely, the Twaite shad and the Allice shad. The 

 former, which used at one time to abound in the 

 Thames (so much so that a portion of the Thames 

 was even named Shad Thames), comes into the rivers 

 to spawn in May, and is seldom met with after 

 August. It is a very indifferent and comparatively 

 worthless fish for food, being bony and coarse. Its 

 size is from twelve to sixteen inches long. 



The Allice shad is a much larger fish, running up 

 to four or five pounds in weight. It is not so well or so 

 commonly known as the Twaite shad. It is found 

 more abundantly in the Severn than in any other of 

 our rivers, and formerly afforded sport to numerous 

 fly-fishers about Worcester, and even now many are 

 caught. But of late years it has followed the salmon, 

 and has greatly fallen off there. It was rarely met 

 with in the Thames. This shad comes into the 

 rivers to spawn, before the Twaite, usually appearing 

 in April For the table, it is very much the best fish 



K 



