MILNER ON THE ARTIFICIAL CULTURE OF THE SHAD. 449 



The necessities in the work depending on the accommodations afforded 

 from the railroads, are access to the baggage-car and opportunities to 

 obtain water from wells, hydrants, tanks, and the tender. In all these 

 particulars the most generous spirit has been manifested by both jnan- 

 agers and employes. 



23. — POSSIBILITY OF STOCKING THE GREAT LAKES WITH SHAD. 



The stocking of fresh waters with fish from the sea, or of those who 

 spend a portion of their lives in the sea, will perhaps be questioned by 

 many as an uncertain experiment and likely to end in failure. 



The conditions found in their natural homes of which the shad may 

 avail themselves may be enumerated as follows: Streams of the right 

 volume of fresh water and the right temperature, to ascend in the 

 spring season to deposit their spawn, and in which the young shad will 

 find a favorable home until they are the proper age to descend to the 

 sea ; a great body of water of unlimited volume on the bottom of which 

 the small forms of Crustacea, the Gammaridcv, and Mysida', small 

 shrimp-like animals, are found abundantly, affording an ample sup- 

 ply of food during the greater part of the year, as but very little is 

 ever found in their stomachs when they are up the streams in the 

 spawning season. Another condition of this great body of water is 

 that it is salt. 



In all these particulars but the latter the lakes answer every de- 

 mand. There are streams suitable for spawning localities ; there is an 

 unlimited range of clear, cool waters ; the dredgings on the bottom at 

 all depths have proven these same crustaceans of the Gammaridw and 

 Mysidce to be abundant, and except in the one particular of the salt- 

 ness of the sea every requisite condition of their natural home is 

 afforded them. The only point to be tested in the experiment is whether 

 this is an essential requirement in their existence. 



Several species of white-fish found in the Arctic Seas live indiffer- 

 ently in salt and fresh waters, and the Coregonus omul, as related by 

 Pallas, sends off large detachments from its schools in the spawning 

 season from the sea up the long series of streams and lakes that find 

 their head in the great Lake Baikal, where the schools find a permanent 

 home, never returning to the sea. 



The eel, brook-trout, striped-bass, and several other species on the 

 eastern coasts, live indifferently in the sea and fresh waters.* 



It is not probable that all fishes which spend their entire lives in the 

 sea could becomeaccustomed or acclimated to fresh waters. Still, among 

 these it would not be uulikelj' to find a few having strong tenacity of 



*Guntlier says, in referring to Goiiidw, that " This family offers nnmerons instances of 

 the fact that a part of the individuals of one and the same species are entirely con- 

 fined to fresh waters, whilst others live in the sea." — Cat. Acanth. Fishes, <y-c., vol. 3, j;. 

 1, hy Dr. Albert Giinther. 



S. Mis! 74 29 



