MILNER ON THE ARTIFICIAL CULTURE OF THE SHAD. 431 



uniform in size, and others of variable size. Whether the latter are the 

 forming eggs for the next year, for two or three succeeding years, or for 

 the lifetime of the fish, has not been determined. In a spent-fish, with 

 the ovaries shrunken and small, they are still found full of these eggs 

 ot dift'erent sizes; and numerous specimens of this character were pre- 

 served in alcohol while at Topsham, Maine, at the close of the spawn- 

 ing-season. 



Several weeks before the time of spawning the ovaries have grown 

 so as to fill the cavity of the abdomen, though still increasing. A short 

 time before spawning, transparent eggs of large size, contrasting 

 strongly with the golden hue of less mature ones, will be found scat- 

 tered through the still compact mass of ova. These become more and 

 more numerous, and after a time the compact condition becomes less ap- 

 parent and the eggs fall apart and sei)arate, and the extrusion begins, 

 a liquid stream of eggs and mucous flowing from the oviduct on the 

 slightest pressure of the abdomen. After they lose their compact con- 

 dition they are no longer preserved for cooking. 



Unripe eggs, on extrusion, instead of flowing in a liquid stream, come 

 away with difficulty in clotted masses, and generally with a little blood. 

 The same thing will be observed on stripping a fish, with ripe eggs, too 

 long, as the eggs of the season are not all ripe at once, as is frequently 

 seen in dissecting the ovaries of spawning-fish. 



The fish, after the spawn is taken away, has a soft and flaccid appear- 

 ance about the abdomen, which, after natural spawning, becomes con- 

 tracted and drawn up, tapering slenderly toward the tail, the familiar 

 appearance that characterizes the despised "spent shad." 



The eggs covering thickly the bottom of a pan containing water are 

 not easily discernible, as they are so very transparent ; and as they come 

 from the fish are so soft and light that when the fingers are moved 

 among them there is nothing other than the water apparent to the 

 touch, and in the dark a person trying the experiment would be willing 

 to admit that there was nothing in the pan but water. 



8. — THE MALE FISH. 



The male fish resembles the female so closely that there is very little 

 certainty in attempting to distinguish between them by outward form, 

 even when the comparison is to be made with a gravid female. The 

 males are ordinarily rather smaller than a full-sized female, and the sex 

 is quickly known, when ripe, by the flow of the milt from the spermaries. 

 Of course dissection always reveals the sex, though the spermaries even 

 in the height of the spawning-season are not nearly so large in propor- 

 tion to the size of the fish as in most fishes handled by fish culturists. 



In large lots of shad brought in by the fish-boats early in the season,^ 

 ripe " milters" are often very numerous when as yet a ripe " spawner' 

 is very rare, while later in the season the ripe males and femalt s are 

 not found in equal numbers, and it is not a seldom occurrence to have 



