18 GILPIN OX THE SHAD. 



Such is the description of this excellent fish as it appears fu? 

 our waters about the middle of June, remaining about a month. 

 They are seldom' taken on the Atlantic coast, and never in 

 quantities, but are brought to our market from the Avon and 

 Shubenacadie. They are also taken in St. Mary's Bay, and in 

 fact in all the bays terminating at ebb in muddy flats that flow 

 into the Bay of Fundy. The Annapolis basin is seemingly too 

 sandy for them, as they resort in much less numbers to it. 

 According to DeKay, they appear at Charleston, S. C, in 

 January, at Norfolk, Va., in February, New York, March or 

 beginning of April, and Boston end of April. Perley says 

 they appear in the Bay of Fundy middle of May and ascend the 

 St. John river to spawn, and ascend the Miramichi river end of 

 May, — their most northern limit. From this data he infers that 

 the great body of fish perform an annual migration from the 

 south to the north, returning in the fall. It is much more 

 probable that the whole body winter in deep soundings parallel 

 with the entire American coast, and as the waters of the Poto- 

 mac, the Chesapeake, the Delaware, the Hudson, and the Con- 

 necticut, the St. John and the Miramichi are successive!}^ warmed 

 by the returning spring, that portion opposite to each enter for 

 the purpose of spawning, and return again to deep soundings. 

 Otherwise one would have to suppose that of a bod}^ of shad 

 near Charleston, all seized in January with the resistless instinct 

 of reproduction, one part sought immediate and direct relief in 

 the nearest rivers, the others made a long and laborious journey 

 to waters then frozen stifi" in ice — the rivers of New Brunswick 

 and Nova Scotia. Such a supposition is untenable. From 

 Perley we learn that they spawn in the lakes communicating 

 with the St. John river in May, return immediately and resort 

 to the mud flats at the head of the Bay cf Fundy, to feed upon 

 shrimps and a large worm called shad worm, found burro wing- 

 in the mud flats at the ebb-tide, and that this food gives them 

 that exquisite flavour for which the Bay of Fundy shad are 

 justly celebrated. No spawn is found in them at this season. 

 From Messrs. Treat & Son, Ave find that their eggs spawned in 

 June were hatched in three weeks, and in three months were able 

 to seek the ocean. Frank Forrester afiirms tliat their flesh is 



