14 American Fisheries Society 



cause of the great and increasing difficulty in getting the 

 eggs. According to the statement of Dr. Tarleton H. 

 Bean, than whom there is no higher authority in 

 America, it was possible to collect but a million eggs in 

 the Hudson this year, though only a few years since 

 nearly eight millions were taken around Tivoli and Ger- 

 mantown, and forty years ago it was easy to get ten mil- 

 ions in a season at Castleton, only ten miles below Al- 

 bany. As stated earlier in this paper, efforts at artificial 

 culture in California failed because of a lack of ripe 

 females, and it is necessary for prompt and energetic 

 action to be taken by the various States and by the Fed- 

 eral Government if the shad is not to repeat the history 

 of the Great Auk and be a monument to man's stupid 

 ruthlessness. 



