153 



like shot ; although when first dropped into the pan 

 they can hardly be felt at all. This is repeated as often 

 as the net is hauled, and when no more spawners can be 

 caught, the pans are carried to the hatching boxes and 

 emptied into them. These boxes are covered with coal 

 tar, to prevent the wire rusting on the bottom and the 

 growth of animal matter, and have along the sides sticks 

 of wood acting as floats, and presenting the wire screen 

 at such an angle to the current that the eggs are kept in 

 a perpetual boiling motion. The boxes are fastened one 

 behind the other by ropes attached to the floats, and 

 need little or no care except to be occasionally stirred at 

 slack tide. The screens on the bottom have a square 

 mesh and twenty-two wires to the inch. The eggs exhibit 

 life in twenty four hours, and hatch in from four to ten 

 days, according to the heat of the water, and then the 

 living fish are turned out and left to care for themselves. 

 The only precaution taken being to turn them out at night 

 when their enemies are not feeding and they can have 

 time to get into the deep water. 



Instead of trusting to good fortune to get ripe spawn- 

 ers from the nets these may be obtained in a way similar 

 to the treatment of salmon and trout. .A pond may be 

 built by darning up a stream running into the main 

 river, in this the shad may be confined till they are ripe. 

 It has been supposed that shad were so timid a fish that 

 they would hardly ascend fish- ways, and could not be 

 kept in confinement, but such does not turn out to be 

 the case. There is no difficulty in ponding them 

 and in examining them from time to time till they be- 

 come in proper condition to strip. They are not more 

 timid than other fish. 



The cultivation of shad is necessarily a work of public 

 duty, it cannot be maintained by private enterprise as 



