ALUS SHAD. 
IS50 
that is there taken. The season is in April and May, and the 
improvement in quality is quickly after the fish have entered 
the river; where they are caught in nets, of the length of about 
two hundred yards, with a mesh of three inches; and from 
seventy to eighty dozen have been caught in a night, at which 
time the fishermen are chiefly at work; for the Shad is a shy 
and timid fish, and might not be easily enclosed in a net by 
day. 
It spawns in about the first half of June, and for this purpose 
they do not proceed very high up the river; it being very 
uncommon to find them so far up as Worcester; the chosen 
situations being shallow and rocky, and the proceeding is eon- 
ducted at night, at which time the fish may be heard to make 
a rattling noise, as if beating the water with their tails. 
Presently after this the quality of the flesh sufl:ers much change, 
and they speedily leave the river for the sea. It is to be 
observed, however, that I have found the roe of large size in 
the first days of February, fully enlarged in April, and also at 
the end of June. When at sea they are sometimes caught with 
a line by those who are whiffing for Pollacks; the bait being 
either the Mud Lamprey, or a slice cut from the side of a 
Mackarel; but it has been also caught in a trammel, which 
shews it sometimes to swim neai- the bottom. 
This species is said to reach the length of three, and even 
four feet, but this must be where it is not often caught, and 
in consequence where it has had time to reach its full stature; 
and a Shad of half that size is what is mostly met with in 
England. In shape it differs from the Herring in being deeper 
in the body, and one from which our description is taken, and 
which was caught in the Severn, measuring fourteen inches and 
a half in length, was three inches and a half in depth. Head 
and body compressed, the latter covered with rather large 
scales to the root of the tail. Jaws equal when closed, but the 
latter protruding a little when the mouth is slightly opened; 
teeth obvious in the upper jaw, on each side of the recess in 
front, and also further on the sides; none in the lower jaw or 
on the tongue. Mystache running back to the hindmost line 
of the eye, narrow at first, then broad, broadly channeled, the 
border plain. Nostrils in a depression nearer the snout than 
the eye. Eye moderate; plate on the top of the head flat. The 
