BULLETIN OP THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 3 ? 
Shad in the Gulf waters.— Dr. Wardell, of Bainbridge, Ga., in- 
forms me that an occasional shad was caught last autumn with bait 
in the Flint River, a branch of the Appalachicola. A few days since I 
was crossing the Ocklockonnee, in Florida, by means of a ferry, and was 
informed by the ferrymen that a new fish had made its appearance in 
the river swimming in shoals, which they described in such a manner 
as to leave no doubt on my mind that these fish were shad. These men 
also said that others who had seen them said that they were that fish. 
[Edward Jack, Tallahassee, Fla., March 7, 1887.] 
A few days since a friend of mine caught several small shad at this 
place at the mouth of Appalachicola River. We never have heard of 
any such fish being caught here before. [ J ohn G. Ruge, Appalachicola, 
Fla., May 5, 1887.] 
Propagating lake herring or ciscos. — Mr. F. M. Baker, writing 
from Rome Gity, Ind., on February 7, 1887, said : “We have in some 
of our lakes in Kosciusko and Noble Counties a small whitefish, figured 
and described by Prof. D. S. Jordan in the Geological Survey of Indiana 
for 1874 under the name of Argyrosomus sisco Jordan,* which I think 
might be successfully and profitably bred and planted in all the lakes 
of Northern Indiana, and would probably be desirable for the lakes of 
the New England States and New York. They inhabit the deep waters 
of the lakes, living upon small crustaceans found there ; they are not 
predaceous in their habits, but in the early stages of their growth fur- 
nish food for predaceous fishes, and when mature they are an excellent 
food-fish, weighing from three-quarters to 1J pounds. Their spawning 
season is during the latter part of November and first of December, at 
which period they throng the inlets of the lakes they inhabit, and are 
taken in vast numbers by nets and spears. With proper appliances 
for hatching, great quantities of eggs might be obtained from the capt- 
ured fish when they come out of the deep waters to spawn.’ 7 
Salmon formerly in the Connecticut. — The following is ex- 
tracted from Mr. Jabez H. Hayden’s Centennial Sketch of Windsor 
Locks : 
“ There is a very common impression at the present day that shad were 
more esteemed as an article of diet than salmon, because of the tradi- 
tion that a man could not buy shad without taking salmon with them. 
I once asked the late Samuel Denslow what that tradition grew out of. 
He said that fish were marketed at the fish-place, and that people came 
with their teams to get a supply of shad to salt, and they were required 
to take the salmon caught with them, the price of 1 pound being the same 
as the price of one shad. [‘1781. For 50 shad at 2d. : 8sA(V — Old account- 
book.] Salmon were so high-priced then that many felt they were a 
luxury they could hardly afford. As an illustration of the high value 
* This seems to he the lake herring or oisco ( Coregonua artedi ) mentioned in Jordan 
& Gilbert's Synopsis of North American Fishes, page 301, and the quarto History of 
Aquatic Animals, p. 541. 
