=Shad.=--One of the most important food fishes on the Atlantic coast is the shad. It is found along the whole Atlantic coast, coming into fresh water for spawning, where it is caught for food purposes. The shad begin to appear in the streams of the south Atlantic coast early in the winter and as the spring advances they go northward. They appear in the Potomac in April and May, and later in the Delaware and Connecticut rivers and other fresh-water streams further north. The fish is, therefore, to be had fresh upon the market over a long period of time. The common shad is known scientifically as _Alosa sapidissima_ (Wilson). As a result of the work of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries the shad has been introduced into the waters of the Pacific coast where none was found originally. The shad fry were first introduced into the Sacramento river and afterward into the Columbia river. The environments on the Pacific coast were found congenial. The fish soon found grounds on which they could spawn, and they have spread over almost the entire length of the Pacific coast. It has, of late, become a very common and abundant food fish on the Pacific coast and has lost none of its palatability by transplanting. Science has not been able to ascertain anything of very great interest respecting the life of the shad in the sea. When they leave the rivers they practically disappear, and are not known again until the next spawning season returns. For spawning purposes the shad prefer a water temperature of from 55 to 65 degrees. Whenever the temperature goes above the latter figure they begin to disappear. The males and females go in separate schools. The males usually precede the females. It is stated by Jordan and Evermann that of 61,000 shad received at the Washington market from March 19 to 24, 99 percent were male. As the season advanced the males became very much less frequent and at the end extremely scarce. The U. S. Bureau of Fisheries has taken especial pains to increase the number of shad in all waters. During the spring of 1900 there were artificially planted in the Atlantic coast streams over 240,000,000 young shad. One fish often contains as many as 150,000 eggs. The average number, however, is about 30,000. Shad roe is the most valuable part of the fish and brings a much higher price in the market than an equal weight of fish itself. Planked shad is one of the greatest delicacies of the Washington markets. At Marshall Hall, opposite Mount Vernon, there are given a great many shad bakes during the season. Oak wood is placed in long lines and burned,--oak planks are set up on each side of the line of burning wood, inclined at an angle of about 60 or 70 degrees. On these oak planks the shad are cooked, held usually by driving a nail through the head,--the cut surface being exposed to the heat of the burning fire. In addition to being cooked in this way the fish absorbs a small amount of the empyreumatic odors of the burning wood. During the baking