108 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



fish, commonly known on the New England coast as "sea shad," which 

 usually appear somewhat later than the grown fish. Excepting in 

 the St. Johns liiver, Delaware River, and on the New England coast, 

 comi)aratively few of the small fish are caught unless unusually low 

 temperature prevails in the rivers during the fishing season, 



A subject about which there is much disagreement is whether shad 

 spawned in a certain river return or endeavor to return to the same 

 stream on their reappearance from the sea as mature fish. This idea has 

 been quite generally accepted, and has to some extent furnished argu- 

 ments for the prosecution of the work of artificial propagation. Not 

 only has it been contended that shad return to the river basin in which 

 they were spawned, but that they endeavor to return to the sanse local- 

 ity in that river basin. In a letter written by Professor Baird in 1873 

 to the Hon. Hamilton Fish, then Secretary of State, the following 

 statement is made: 



Aiiadromons fish, or snch as run up the rivers from the sea to spawn, will return, 

 if possible, to the river in which they first saw the light. So true is this that where 

 there may be two or three rivers entering the sea in close proximity, which have 

 become destitute of shad or herring in consecjueuce of long-continued obstructions, 

 and the central one only has been stocked by artificial means, the fish, year by year, 

 will enter that stream, while those adjacent on either side will continue as barren of 

 fish as l)efore. 



While this may be true to a certain extent, yet, as Professor Baird 

 says in the same letter: 



It is difficult to imagine how a shad spawned in any northern stream could avoid 

 entering a more southern river if in its vicinity. 



It seems that fish spawned in Kennebec River are more likely to 

 return to that stream than they are to Delaware River, and that shad 

 fry planted in the latter stream will tend to improve the fisheries of 

 that section rather than those of the waters of Georgia. But how is 

 it in case of two rivers in close proximity, like tbeOgeechee and Savan- 

 nah, whose entrances into the sea are only 17 miles apart"? The young 

 shad leaving those rivers and remaining in the deep water off the 

 mouths thereof for a period of two or three years must surely com- 

 mingle as a result of currents, variations of temperature, search for 

 food, etc. Again, in the instance of two or more streams which com- 

 municate with the sea through the same outlet, as the Neuse, Chowan, 

 and Roanoke rivers, all of which are tributaries of Pamlico Sound, or 

 the various tributaries of Chesapeake Bay, does the peculiar instinct 

 common to shad cause them to pass by the mouth of one stream and 

 enter another merely because, three years before, they were spawned in 

 that other river? It appears more reasonable to suppose that shad 

 remain in the hydrographic area in which they are spawned, this area 

 including the rivers entering the sea and the submerged areas between 

 the coast line and the Gulf Stream, and that they seek any suitable 

 spawning-grounds within that area and do not necessarily return to the 

 identical river in which they were bred. When shad were introduced 



