304 DOMESTICATED TROUT. 



of a shad looks like a fine-tooth comb or a wool-card, and 

 the best way to get the meat out is to use a toothpick. A 

 little later in the season and the shad will make their ap- 

 pearance. When they come, they come a good deal ; there 

 is many of him ; he is multitudinous. We are not read 

 up as to where the shad lives before he comes this way, 

 but he boards where they set a poor table. When he first 

 puts in an appearance, he is extremely emaciated. He is 

 so thin that his skin don't fit him, hence the phrase " thin 

 as a shad." You can't get anything thinner than a spring 

 shad, unless you take a couple of them, when, of course, 

 they will be twice as thin. They look much like a porgie, 

 — about twice as much, but they are not so high-scented. 

 Shad fishing is a lucrative business. If the fisherman has 

 good luck, they will net him considerable, or he will net 

 them considerable, we are doubtful which. They are fast. 

 They don't stop to loaf any more than a thoroughbred pill, 

 but just keep right on about their business. 



A person to like shad wants to eat them often, at near 

 intervals, once every twenty-four hours for eleven or nine- 

 teen weeks. The champion place for getting up an appe- 

 tite for shad is at a Brooklyn boarding-house. The thing 

 there is reduced to a science. As soon as shad becomes 

 cheap and plenty, the landlady announces at the breakfast- 

 table that she will have shad for dinner. The boarder 

 immediately goes to his room and puts on the poorest shirt 

 he has, and when he comes to dinner he has provided him- 

 self with a magnifying glass, which makes the bones look 

 larger, a small basket to put the bones in, a toothpick, and 

 a pair of tweezers. When one eats shad he wants to eat 

 it ; he don't want to talk or discuss the state of affairs in 

 France, as he will get so full of the bony parts that he will 

 sigh for a little more Bourbon. When he swallows a bone, 

 all he has to do is to take his tweezers and pull it out ; 

 after one learns this art it is simple and even graceful. It 



