The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1897-02-19

times an axiom,
says the Philadel-
phla 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
e~gg-laying and Matching, she may reach
the maximum of between $4,000 and
io,OOO 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.
OOO 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-
preclates the flavor of shad quite as
nuch as man, go along, and when the
ground is reached hang
around impatiently for the young to be
porn, 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
nsh wakes fat. He loiters with them all
summer n follows them on their
downward journey to the sea, in Sep.
TENDER or October.
1t is estimated that OF the 800 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 can do, though it
must be confessed that when she de-
signed this life history of the shad she
did not take mans probable interfer~
ence into account, because, despite the
fact that only about l per cent of the
fish which existed first in embryo safe
ly reached the sea, that 1 per cent,
without mans interference, would soon
Till the rivers to overlooking.
It 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 10000 eggs, causes them
to be thoroughly fertilized, and, by
means of certain contrivances, matches
out about $4,000, 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 cause by catch
ing mature fish for food purposes.
How shad are artiticially Matched is
interesting as we'll as instructive. and
hen the work begins it will repay a
1T to the hatchery at Bristol to wit
ness it. AS soon as the water of the
Delaware reaches a temperature above
so 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
nets and make their casts. The
naphtha launch of the fish commission
is brought into service, and the en-