12 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY» 
anything else; he resembles the salmon in being anadromous and 
good to eat, and that’s all. He is in fact the Indian Shad. 
The English Shad or Allice is not a very common fish, and I 
believe is only important in the Severn. It is, however, worth 
while to notice the similarity of ‘‘ Allice” and “ Hilsa”’ or “ilisha,” 
the Bengal name of the Palla. “ Alausa” is a Latin name, but 
whether taken from the West orthe Hast does not appear. At any 
rate, the Shads are now properly c lassed as gigantic Sprats (Clupea), 
and our fish is Clupea dlisha, and is the most important of the 
breed in freshwater, except, perhaps, the Shad of the United States, 
which is also the subject of a great fishery. 
The difference between Shads and other Sprats is—firstly, that 
they run up rivers to breed (are anadromous), and secondly, that 
they are the giants of the genus Clupea. I have not my Sind notes 
at hand, but can safely say that the Palla usually exceeds 3lbs., 
and very rarely 6lbs. in weight when in decent condition (fresh- 
run). But some have been weighed in my presence over 7lbs. just 
out of the water. 
In that condition the flavour of the Palla is very much that of a 
fresh herring, but likeall the tribe he decays rapidly. <A really 
fresh Palla is one fish on the table, and one two hours caught in 
another, After six hours he is very often quite inadmissible aw 
naturel, The Sindis, however, are great hands at salting, drying, 
and kippering him, and I remember with affection several ladies 
whom the customs of the country never permitted me to thank in 
person, but to whom I yet stand indebted for breakfasts that 
Donegal or Perthshire could not have beaten. 
Winally I have, with regret, to say of the Palla that ho is most sin- 
fully bony, so that the anatomising of him in a manner to make 
him eatable is one of the fine arts of Sind, and that his roe, though 
well flavoured, is so dry as to require cent. per cent. of butter 
before you can swallow it. 
So much for the Palla himself, but I shonld not have described 
the waters of Sind if I had not more to say about his capture, which 
depends upon methods showing an odd mixture of barbarous 
mechanical ignorance with a profound knowledge of one of the least 
commonly known seerets of nature. 
In the snow-fed Indus, the upper water, warmed by the sun, always 
retains its place, and, as elsewhere, flows at a much higher rate of 
speed than the colder and silt-laden bottom-water. ‘To the Palla 
