The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1897-05-06

says the Philadel-
phia Ledger. The average female shad,
when ready to rear a family, can pro-
duce about 10000 eggs. The actual
number depends upon her age. If she
succeeds for several years in surmount-
ing the perils of the journey from the
sea to the spawning grounds, and of
egg-laying and Matching, she may reach
the maximum of between $4,000 and
10000 eggs. Of the ova de-
posted naturally, in the river,
not more than 10 per cent
is Matched. A large number is not fer
tilted, and a Larger number is de-
voured during incubation by cells, Ger
man carp and other fish. Thus, of 3d.
900 eggs laid, not more than an aver
age of 300 young fish succeed in wrig-
Cling into life. That is only the be-
ginning of their troubles. When the
parent fish swim to the headwaters OF
the river, the rockfish, or, more prop
erly speaking, striped bass, which ap-
p~reciates the flavor of shad quite as
much as man, go along, and when the
spawning ground is reached hang
around impatiently for the young to be
born. feeding meanwhile on minnows
or anything in the fish line that comes
along, rounding up and demolishing
whole schools with a neatness and dis.
patch wonderful to be behold. AS soon
as the young shad are born the rock
fish wakes fat. He loiters with them all
summer and follows them on their
downward journey to the sea, in Sep.
TENDER or October.
1t is estimated that of the 300 young
shad born in the spring, not more than
twenty-five or thirty on an average sue
coed in reaching salt water. That is
about the best nature car do, though it
must be confessed that when she de-
signed this life history of the shad she
did not take mans probable interior.
ence into account, because, despite the
fact that only about 1 per cent of the
fish which existed first in embryo safe
ly reached the sea, that 1 per cent,
without mans interference, would soon
fill the rivers to overlooking.
1t is here that man steps in and
shows himself to be a better economist
than Dame Nature, who has, in fact,
shown herself to be wasteful to prodi-
gality in some of her methods of work.
He takes the 80, 1000 eggs, causes them
to be thoroughly fertilized, and, by
means of certain ~contrivances, matches
! out about $1,000, against natures 300
by her primitive methods. Therefore,
instead of only about twenty-five or
thirty young shad reaching the sea, be-
tween $500 and 5000 accomplish the
trip safely. Thus man does more than
repair the damage he causes by catch
ing mature fish for food purposes.
How shad are artiicially Matched is
interesting as we'll as instructive, and
when the work begins it will repay a
visit to the hatchery at Bristol to wit
ness it. AS soon as the water of the
Delaware reaches a temperature above
60 degrees the mature shad begin their
rush from the sea. The run is always
led by the male fish, though just why
this is is not definitely settled by
scientists, but it is alleged by many that
the males go ahead in order to choose
and take possession of the most eligible
nesting sites and to perform the pre-
liminary work of nest building. Then
the giller and shore fishermen get out
their nets and make their casts. The
naphtha launch of the fish commission
is brought into service, and the en-
ployes follow up alternately the two
classes of meters. AS the shad are re-
moved from the meshes the fish are
taken by the spawn-taker and carefully
examined to see if they are ripe-that
is, whether the eggs or milt are in a
condition to be expressed.
When a ripe female is found her eggs
are stripped into a pan and she is re-
turned to the fisherman to be sold as a
buck or a barren" The milt of a
male is then expressed over the & e
but, before he is thrown aside to be
sold as food, there is yet one more
duty required of him. The expressed
milt has gone irregularly over the
eggs and all are not fortified. To ac-
complish this the fish culturist stirs
the mass thoroughly with the tail of
the male. He is used for a tWo-fold
reason-first, he is the handiest imple-
ment with which to do the work, and,
secondly, the tail is so soft and pliable
that the eggs are neither broken nor
unduly shaken up.
AS soon as the ova are gathered the
fish culturist @eturns with them to the
Matching station. Here they are washed
and placed in the Matching jars and
the water turned on. The flow of the
latter causes the eggs to be kept con
stantly in motion, thus preventing them
from adhering to each other. In two
or three days the eyes of the little shad
appear and are distinctly visible as two
black spots; then the backbone shows
itself, and in a few days more the lit
tie creature breaks from it's prison and
struggles to the top of the mass of
eggs. Then it is caught by the siphon
and carried into one of the aquaria,
where it most likely finds hundreds of
its kind. When these hundreds be-
come thousands they are dipped out
and placed in very large storage aqua
ria, set in the floor in the forward part
of the hatchery. At this period each
little fish has attached to it what is
called an umbilical sac, and on the con-
tents of this for some days it feeds.
The fish commission has no means of
feeding the little ones, inc therefore
a few days after being Matched they