250 TROUT AND SALMON 



If any one imagines that the Fisheries Bureau can procure 

 each year enough Shad eggs to maintain the supply of Shad, 

 that idea should be abandoned, for it is wholly fallacious. 

 The Shad fishermen have the alternative of giving the Shad 

 a semblance of a square deal or else seeing the supply rapidly 

 dwindle away from unfair and excessive fishing. 



Originally, the Shad was not a habitant of Pacific waters; 

 but in 1871, Mr. Seth Green, of Rochester, made for the Cali- 

 fornia State Fish Commission the initial experiment of trans- 

 porting 10,000 young Shad across the continent, and planting 

 them in the Sacramento River. From that year up to 1880, 

 about 60,000 more fry were deposited in that stream by 

 the United States" Bureau of Fisheries. In 1885 and 1886, 

 910,000 Shad fry were planted in the Columbia and Wil- 

 lamette Rivers. 



To-day, on the Pacific coast, the Shad ranges from south- 

 ern California to southern Alaska, and is one of the most 

 valuable food fishes of that region. In 1899 the fish-dealers 

 of California alone handled 1,137,801 pounds, worth $14,303. 



The average length of the Shad is from 24 to 30 inches, 

 and its weight is from 3 to 4 pounds. The color of the fish 

 is a soft, silvery white, all over, but the scales are easily de- 

 tached, and an immaculate specimen is rarely seen in a fish- 

 market. 



To landlocked Americans of the upper Mississippi Valley 

 and the shores of the Great Lakes the Common Whitefisii 1 

 is an undisguised blessing. To them it is all that the shad 

 is to the East, or the salmon to the Pacific coast. Whenever 



1 Co-rc-go'nus clu-pc-i-Jor'niis. 



