The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-05-19
FOUR TONS OF sHAD.
Received for Propagating Purposes 2,400,0O0 Shad Fry for the Joshua- town Retaining Pond

Received for Propagating Purposes 1 2,400,00O Shad Fry for the Joshua
 town Retaining Pond, Deep River, May 15--Last Friday
 morning the early train dropped off the l United States fish commissioners car at
 this station, It contained 2,400000 shad | fry, put up in ten gallon cans ready to l be placed in the retaining pond at Josh , uatoWn, and remain there until large enough to take care of themselves in the river Joshuatown is a little hamlet in the town of Lyme, located short dis
 tanCe south of Deep River. and on the opposite side of the Connecticut. A few years ago the state fish commissioners created a pond there for the purpose of prOpagating shad. 1t is well down to- ward the mouth of the river, where the water is pure and not contaminated with sewage or any other foreign mat ter, and iS admirably adapted for the purpose. It has been a great success, too, as is proven by the increase of shad
 taken from year to year by fishermen, Thomas l.. Post, the government lighthouse keeper at Deep River had received notification of the coming of
 the fish, and he was at the dock with his large barge, ready to transport them across the river. The trip was accom- plished without incident, the contents of
 the cans placed in the pond, and the empty receptacles brought back and
 placed in the ear in time for it to be attached to the afternoon train south.
 PLANTING THE WATERS.
 So completely is the output of shad under human control that, if desired, rivers could be crowded with them. At one time the winter habits of shad were perpleXing. It was imagined that they betook themselves to southern wa ters during the cold weather and re- turned in the spring. This notion has been proved erroneous, and it is now believed that shad never go very far from the mouths of rivers in which they were hatched They spend their win ters in deeper, adjacent waters, and re- turn to the river in which they were born for the purpose of reproducing their species.
 The artificial propagation of shad is simply question of gathering the eggs which are readily obtainable in count less millions, matching them in glass JaiS, anu uullpllE tue HtllS lslltS iiito the rivers, after retaining them for a while in enclosed ponds, in order that they may grow. A shad when first hatched is about the size of half small pin. the head and eye being cas- fly discernible but the body is fimsy and transparent. They grow quite fast, and in a week or so are an inch long. The United States fish commission pays twenty dollars per million for eggs, and an average shad will supply twenty-five thousand of them.
 SHAD EGGS.
 A shad egg is much like hens egg in the notion governing it's structure, but. whereas the unborn chick, growing from the germ-spot on one side of the yolk, first feeds on the white of the egg and then on the yolk, coming out only when it has consumed both the embra- yo shad, when 1t comes into the world, has the yolk of its egg still attached to its belly, being provided with a weeks rations in advance, Looking at a shad egg three days old under microscope, one can see distinctly not only the eyes, but also the backbone and the heart it. self pulsating visibly. The egg is epherical capsule filled with albumi- nous matter, covered by q thin, trans parent membrane, perforated by a sin gle minute opening. In the center of this sphere is the germ life, only re- quiring impregnation by the male spe- cies. The milt of the male shad. exam ined under the microscope. is full of spindle shaped poywogs. which are ex- ceedingly lively in action. It is only necessary that one of them finds it's way into an egg in order to render !, fertile. Presently the intruding poly wog is observed to lose its shape and is transformed into nucleus resem- bling that of an egg, The two then blend into a single gern-cell, and with may be said to begin
 It is very interesting to watch jar in which the shad eggs have begun to hatch.f Perhaps there will be twenty thousand eggs in the receptacle, and, as all of them ripen at about the same time, the hatching goes on at a pretty rapid rate, so that every moment one sees tiny fish emerge from its capsule. | At the hatching stations the jars are run in batteries, hundreds of them to- gether, and the multiplication of the | species goes on at a rate which might | well occasion old Dame Nature to blink | with astonishment.
 Within the past twenty years, by | means of artificial propagation, the shad | output of the Atlantic coast rivers has been increased from eighteen millions | % forty-five millions of pounds per an- lum.