BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANGLING. 271 



introduce new species of fish into Britain. There is 

 another direction in which good work might be done to- 

 wards increasing the number of valuable fish, I mean 

 by the destruction of both fry and spawn of the 

 worthless fish, which, without increasing our food supply 

 or sport, eat up the feed of more worthy water tenants. 

 In parts of the United States a notable example of this 

 necessity exists. At particular times, a fish called the 

 Shad runs up the river in immense numbers (as it did 

 years ago in the Severn) the movement being known as 

 " The Run of Shad." In Domesticated Trout, by Living- 

 stone, there is given a description of the effect of the shad 

 season upon life in the boarding-houses, from which I 

 quote the following : — 



Shad are nature's pin-cushions for bones. They are built of the refuse 

 stuff that was left after all the rest of the fish were concocted. The interior 

 of a shad looks like a fine tooth comb or a wool card, and the best way to 

 get the meat out is to use a tooth-pick. A little later in the season and the 

 shad will make their appearance. When they come, they come a good 

 deal ; there is many of him ; he is multitudinous. We are not read up as 

 to where the shad lives before he comes this way, but he boards where they 

 set a poor table. When he first puts in an appearance, he is extremely 

 emaciated. He is so thin that his skin don't fit him, hence the phrase, 

 ' thin as a shad.' You can't get anything thinner than a spring shad, unless 

 you take a couple of them, when, of course, they will be twice as thin. 

 They look much like a porgie, — about twice as much, but they are not so 

 high-scented. Shad fishing is a lucrative business. If the fisherman has 

 good luck, they will net him considerable or he will net them considerable, 

 we are doubtful which. They are fast. They don't stop to loaf any more 

 than a thorough-bred pill, but just keep right on about their business. 



A person to like shad wants to eat them often, at near intervals, once 

 every twenty-four hours for eleven or nineteen weeks. The champion place 

 for getting up an appetite for shad is at a Brooklyn boarding-house. The 

 thing there is reduced to a science. 



