120 ALLIS SHAD. 



that is there taken. The season is in April and May, and the 

 improvement in quality is quickly after the fish have entered 

 the river; where they are caught in nets, of the length of ahout 

 two hundred yards, with a mesh of three inches; and from 

 seventy to eighty dozen have been caught in a night, at which 

 time the fishermen are chiefly at work; for the Shad is a shy 

 and timid fish, and might not be easily enclosed in a net by 

 day. 



It spawns in about the first half of June, and for this purpose 

 they do not proceed very high up the river; it being very 

 uncommon to find them so far up as Worcester; the chosen 

 situations being shallow and rocky, and the proceeding is con- 

 ducted at night, at which time the fish may be heard to make 

 a rattling noise, as if beating the water with their tails. 

 Presently after this the quality of the flesh suffers much change, 

 and they speedily leave the river for the sea. It is to be 

 observed, however, that I have found the roe of large size in 

 the first days of February, fully enlarged in April, and also at 

 the end of June. When at sea they are sometimes caught with 

 a line by those who are whiffing for Pollacks; the bait being 

 either the Mud Lamprey, or a slice cut from the side of a 

 Mackarel; but it has been also caught in a trammel, which 

 shews it sometimes to swim near the bottom. 



This species is said to reach the length of three, and even 

 four feet, but this must be where it is not often caught, and 

 in consequence where it has had time to reach its full stature; 

 and a Shad of half that size is what is mostly met with in 

 England. In shape it differs from the Herring in being deeper 

 in the body, and one from which our description is taken, and 

 which was caught in the Severn, measuring fourteen inches and 

 a half in length, was three inches and a half in depth. Head 

 and body compressed, the latter covered with rather large 

 scales to the root of the tail. Jaws equal when closed, but the 

 latter protruding a little when the mouth is slightly opened; 

 teeth obvious in the upper jaw, on each side of the recess in 

 front, and also further on the sides; none in the lower jaw or 

 on the tongue. Mystache running back to the hindmost line 

 of the eye, narrow at first, then broad, broadly channeled, the 

 border plain. Nostrils in a depression nearer the snout than 

 the eye. Eye moderate; plate on the top of the head flat. The 



