168 AMERICAN FISH CULTUKE. 



" If my hope should prove well-founded, some small 

 number of shad will make their way as far up the river 

 next spring as Duncan's island, a distance of nearly fifty 

 miles higher up than they have been able to reach for 

 many years, and this number will increase from year to 

 year, if not too much thinned out by fishing, until we may 

 hope for an adequte supply of this spring delicacy, being 

 brought back to localities so long unjustly deprived of it. 



" I say small number, for L have recently received a 

 letter from Mr. Lyman, of Massachusetts, the gentleman 

 before alluded to, to whom I had communicated the progress 

 of our operations, warning me that I ' must not be disap- 

 pointed if my shad do not go up so fast or so far as I hope. 

 It is not the tendency usually of fish to make much exertion 

 to pass beyond the beds where they were spawned,' and he 

 particularly wishes me to ' cause reliable observations to 

 be made on this very point, and if the fish do go over the 

 dam and pass far above it in really large numbers, that I 

 would tell him of it, as it would be a point of interest in 

 natural history' — (See last number (October or November) 

 of the proceedings of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 

 Science, on the planting of shad in the Alabama river), 

 and he adds, ' if they do not go freely over, being satisfied 

 that they could if they chose, you must transport some 

 from below into the basin of the dam above, and then let 

 your legislature forbid fishing above the dam for five 

 years. That is the term allowed in Maine to restore bar- 

 ren rivers.' 



" I think we need hardly take the trouble to transplant 



