460 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Jersey,* March ; Boston, early ia April ; Bay of Fundy, late in April 

 or May. 



It is the opinion of many fish-cultiirists that shad never spawn ia 

 tide- water. This, I tliink, is an error. Shad, so ripe that it was impossi- 

 ble to handle them ever so gently without causing a flow of spawn, have 

 been repeatedly- taken more than a hundred miles below the head of 

 tide-water, and at Mull's Fishery on the Hudson, where millions of shad- 

 spawn are annually taken, the tide ebbs and flows. From observations 

 made by me at Camp Baird during the summer of 1873, it would appear 

 that the ripe females with their attendant males feeling the time of 

 spawning approaching, lurk during the day in the deepest portions of 

 the river. At nighi, between an hour after sunset and midnight, they 

 move into shallow waters, and, though for the proper incubation of the 

 spawn clean gravel has been regarded as absolutely necessary, most 

 ripe shad are taken upon bottoms thickly covered with aquatic plants. 

 At Mull's Fishery so great is this growth of vegetation as to sometimes 

 put a stop to the operations of the fishermen. 



The noise of the splashes made by the fishes in the act of emitting the 

 spawn and milt are the best guides for the fish-culturist in selecting a 

 proper locality for a fish-camp, and the most favorable locations I have 

 met with are on flats covered with aquatic vegetation in the immediate 

 vicinity of deep reaches of the river. The splash, or wash of the shad, 

 as it is termed by the fishermen, is apparently but a single sound, yet a 

 carefully-trained ear can frequently distinguish two sounds, the second 

 followiug instantaneously that of the first, being made by the male in 

 the act of emitting the milt. 



My attention was called to this second sound after observing the pro- 

 cess of impregnation of the spawn of the gold-fish in a pond at my estab- 

 lishment at Troutdale. The male and female fishes swim side b^' side, 

 the male generally upon the left with his head on a line with the dorsal 

 fin of the female. Suddenly, on passing near a clump of aquatic plants, 

 the female makes a leap out of water, throwing the whole body in the 

 air, and scattering her spawn over the plants; she is immediately fol- 

 lowed by the male, ejecting milt. So raj)idl}' is this done that even 

 while watching the process it is diflicult at all times to distinguish more 

 than one sound. Having frequently observed this, it occurred to me 

 that the spawning of the shad might be similar, and observation has 

 confirmed this iuipression. 



The practical details and journals of my work having been presented 

 in my jDrevious report, I have, in the present paper, only given you my 

 theories. 



* First shad taken iu the Delaware Bay in 1874, February 10, an unprecedeutedly 

 early fish. 



