138 Mr. Yarrell on Whitebait and Shad. 



Dr. Turton in his British Fauija, attached to his description of the 

 Bleak, Cyprinus alburnus, has the following observation : " The White- 

 " bait which has hitherto been considered as a variety of this fish, ap- 

 " pears by the judicious and accurate investigation of the author of the 

 " Natural History of British Fishes, to be merely the young fry of the 

 " Clupea alosa or Shad." 



Mr. Donovan, in his Natural History of British Fishes, treats this 

 subject at some length, and considers that his examination aflPords incon- 

 trovertible evidence that the Whitebait is really the fry of the common 

 Shad. 



Dr. Fleming, in his recently published History of British Animals, 

 follows Mr. Donovan in considering the Whitebait as the fry of the Shad. 



To place this subject, upon which such different opinions have been 

 entertained, in a clear point of view, it may be proper to commence 

 with a short account of the habits of each of these two fishes. 



All English writers agree that the Shads enter our rivers in the month 

 of May, for the purpose of depositing their spavra, and, this object 

 accomplished, they return to sea by the end of July. They appear 

 during these three months in the greatest abundance in the Thames, 

 from the first point of land beyond Greenwich, opposite the Isle of 

 Dogs, to the distance of a mile below, and immense quantities are taken 

 every year. Formerly, great quantities of Shads were caught by fisher- 

 men at that part of the Thames opposite the present Penitentiary, but 

 tlie state of the water has driven the fish higher up the stream, and the 

 fisliing for them at this point has been almost abandoned. 



Very considerable numbers of Shads were also taken in former seasons 

 as high up the river as Hammersmith, but the deterioration which the 

 quality of the water has sufi"ered from various causes, has rendered the 

 fishing for Shads in this part of the river an employment scarcely worth 

 followdng : the quantity of fishes obtained in a season twenty years ago, 

 compared vsath the produce of the present year, would be in the pro- 

 portion of an hundred to one. 



By various acts of Parliament,* the conservation of the river Thames 

 from Staines Bridge downwards, and of the waters of the Medway, is vested 



* 13 Ed-ward I., c. 47. 17 Richard II., c. 9, and 10 Anne. 



