XVI.-LETTERS REFERRING TO THE PRESENCE OF SHAD IN 

 THE RIVERS TRIBUTARY TO THE GULF OF MEXICO. 



Greenville, Ala., April 11, 1872. 



Dear Sir : Your favor of the 4tli instant to hand, and in reply state 

 that the white shad are caught in Pea Kiver, at Elba, Coffee County, 

 Alabama. They commence catchiug them in fall traps about the 15th 

 of March, up to the 1st of May. They commenced running in that 

 stream about the year 1804, in small quantities, increasing in size and 

 quantities every season. They also catch the hickory and gizzard shad, 

 which are easily distinguished from the white, in size, flavor, and shape. 

 The white shad's mouth comes together even, and is white. They are 

 thicker and broader, have a dark streak on each side of the backbone 

 after cutting open, and have a different flavor from any other fish, while 

 the hickory shad's under lij) is larger than the upper, and is black and 

 extremely bony, and they taste entirely different from the white shad. 

 Mr. John P. Reynolds, of this city, who was raised at Macon, Ga., 

 and dealt in Savanuah shad, was at Elba last week, and says they were 

 then catchiug the genuine white shad. 



Hoping that you may be able to stock the southern waters with them, 

 and having no doubt that it can be done, 

 I am vours, respectfully, 



JNO. T. KNIGHT. 



Mr. W. P. YoNGE, 



Spring Villa, Ala. 



P. S. — The above statement is correct. 



JNO. P. EEYi^OLDS. 



YONGESBOROUGH, Ala., April 15, 1872. 



Dear Sir : By request of Col. W. Penn Yonge, I address you in 

 regard to the breeding and stocking of the southern waters with white 

 shad and herring. 



Several years' residence in South Alabama and Florida gave me op- 

 portunities of noticing the characteristics of many of the numerous 

 streams giving their waters to the Gulf. I have fished, and hunted the 

 deer, on the Conecuh and its tributaries, the Big and Little Escambias. 

 Tide-water flows as high up as the Molino Mills, twenty-five miles above 

 Pensacola, by railroad, giving at least seventy-five miles from the mouth 

 of Escambia Bay, to the highest flow. I think I can safely say there are 

 no streams on the continent better adapted for the introduction and 

 reproduction of the shad and herring from the Atlantic. These waters 



