Evening journal., 1901-05-21
HOW THE SHAD
GETS ITS LIFE.
Roe Is Extracted From Fish
While It Is Alive
YOUNG FISH SHIPPED AWAY.
To Places More Favorable TO Their
Growth Than Is Delaware
Water
YOUNG FISH SHIPPED AWAY

ter. making fish. She made last year there
67OOO,0OO shad in two months, and no
doubt she will make there this year as
many more. How and why. does she
perform such a work? Captain James A.
Smith will tell you. He has been for
twenty years with the Fish Hawk. which
is the United States Fish commission's
boat
First" says Captain Smith, I'VE VIII
take up the question of how the fish are
made. We win begin at the beginning
and follow the operation through TO the
end. The beginning is at Washington
Park. where Captain Albert Rice mans
the great shad seine. Let us go there
At Washington Park a half-dozen Of
the Fish Hawks men were at work. A
haul OF 1000 wrggling slvery shad had
just been made by Captain Rice, and
these shad the haif-dozen men were lift
ing. one by one. from the net and strip
ping them. To strip" a fish is to re-
move its roe. and this must be done while
the fish is alive, or otherwise the roe, is
worthless for propogating purposes, be-
ing. like its parent. dead.
The Fish Hawks six men worked upon
the living shad with singular dexterity.
while the right would pass quickly down
the length of its belly. squeezing out be-
tween the forefnger and thumb the roe.
the tiny, living eggs One by one the
shad were taken up. despoiled of their
spawn, and tossed still living, back into
the net The roe filled slowly a huge tin
bucket; It was a pale. moist. granulated
substance resembling Quicksand
we viii go back now with the roe 10
the Fish Hawk" said Captain Smith.
This was done. and there the roe was
laid out in little tins upon long table.
Into each tin a few drops of a colorless
fluid was placed, and instantly. then. phe
little eggs began TO grow. Originally the
size Of the eggs which we eat in our shad
roe. they had increased IN twenty min
utes to an eighth of an inch in size. They
were now set in glass jars through which
fresh water ran, and in from four to
seven days they will change there into
little fish
The deck Of the Fish Hawk resembied
the laboratory OF a chemist 1t was
covered with black tables and on each
table We're the jars. two feet in height
and one foot in diameter. with long tubes
parted. In each jar. there were 100000 eggs
and there were 1856 jars
FROM EGGS COME TINY sHAD.
The eggs were in all the various stages
Of maturity. They We're colorless gel
atinous in appearance; they fioated. a
thick, revolving mass. I'm their jars, and
some Of them We're very tiny, while some
had swollen to the bigness OF peas, and
within them, for their walls were trans
parent the little shad could be seen. toss
ing and kicking. trying to break the shell
and emerge. And even as you looked.
shell would burst, and tiny fish would
come forth and be carried by suction
from the parent jar. through a tube into
glass aquarium.
The newborn shad is about the length
of the little finger nail. 1t is hardly thick
er than hair. 1t has no more color than
bit of plate glass Under its throat Is
globule, like drop of water, that con-
tains nourishment, for shad's mouth is
closed for three or four days after birth.
and were it not for the globule TO sus-
tain it the tiny creature would die Of star
walton. This globule. as soon as the
mouth opens, withers and falls on The
eyes Of the shad are dark. Like the tiny
points OF black pins, they stare with a
strange sharpness from the colorless
head.
HATCHING PROCESS EXPLAINED.
''The time it takes to hatch the eggs de-
pends on the temperature Of the water %
said Captain Smith. with a tempera-
ture OF 60 degrees the eggs hatch in seven
days; with temperature of g. in six
days; with a temperature of g. in four
days and so on. These jars reproduce the
best conditions for Matching as they exist
on the river bottom. The eggs move
gently in the jars just as the current
would move them on the bottom, and
they have a clean Matching place here
such as their mothers would have chosen
for them.
Captain Albert Rice. with his father
and grandfather before him, has studied
THE shad of the Delaware a long TIME
and he tells me the eggs are laid ii
places where little cold springs gush up
These springs keep the river bottom
clean; there is no mud there, but pur,
white sand. The eggs in the river though
are eaten by cells and a hundred othe
hsh' and It's a very small percentage o
them that matches. The eggs in these Jar
nearly all hatch Only 10 or 15 per cent
OF them are lost
SHIPPED AWAY TO GROW.
we ship the shad as soon as they ar
few days old to places favorable I
their growth We are shipping them no,
in milk cans, with 10000 in a can. I
Lacknwaxen, Calicoon, Port Jervis an
selem. They will grow at the rate OF a
inch month. BY next November the
will feel able to take care OF themselve
ana they will put out TO sea- They wi
stay at sea until they are fuli-growr
Then they will return to their matt,
river-they always return TO the riv,
they were born into spawn. Bsr tn
time they win be four years old
I'VE breed shad and other fish in ord
20 replenish our streams Many rive
had become almost barren OF fish. whe
in 1S7l, the Fish Commission was form,
by the work of the late Professor spenc
IT, Baird. Since then ,sthose barr
streams have become fruitful again. The