CULTURE OF THE SHAD. 151 



locality for the experiment, in the early summer of 1848 

 had placed in a small tributary of the Etowah river the 

 fecundated eggs of the white shad, which I had myself 

 carefully prepared at my plantation on the Savannah river, 

 ten miles above this city, from living parents. These eggs, 

 so deposited by Major Cooper, were daily visited by him 

 until they had all hatched. I sent another supply of 

 fecundated eggs to Daniel Pratt, Esq., at Prattsville, near 

 Montgomery, Ala., in 1853 or 1854, as he writes me, which 

 he deposited in a small creek. Inasmuch as he left home 

 soon after, and was absent ' some weeks,' he can only report 

 that during that absence heavy rains raised the waters in 

 the creek, and washed away the ' pen' in which he had 

 placed the white-shad eggs supplied by me. Nothing can 

 therefore be safely aflBrmed of the success of this second 

 deposit, nor is it important, as in 1851 or 1852, the white 

 shad had already been taken in the fish-traps at the foot 

 of the Falls of the Alabama, at Wetumpka, and of the 

 Black Warrior, near Tuscaloosa, though unknown to me at 

 the time of supplying Mr. Pratt with the fecundated eggs. 

 " Through the kindness of a friend at Montgomery, Ala., 

 a shad taken from the Alabama river was sent to Professor 

 Holbrook, of Charleston, S. C, and he wrote me that he 

 ' felt certain'' that the fish received and examined by him 

 was identical with the' white shad of our Atlantic rivers. 

 I have a letter from Charles T. Pollard, Esq., of Mont- 

 gomery, Ala., of 6th inst., in which, speaking of the white 

 shad in the Alabama river, he says : ' They have gradually 

 increased in quantity since they first appeared, and have 



