THE BLA CK BASSES. 5 7 



the various drainage systems were connected by canals, the distribution 

 limits of the two species were much more sharply defined, the Large-mouth 

 inhabiting, perhaps, the upper part of the basin of the Great Lakes and 

 St. Lawrence and the rivers of the southern seaboard, while the Small- 

 mouth was found chiefly in the northern part of the Mississippi basin. 

 This theory can never be demonstrated, however, for the early ichthy- 

 ologists had not adopted the accurate methods of study now in use, and 

 their descriptions of the fish they saw are scarcely good enough to guess 

 by. The mingling of the two forms might have been accomplished in an 

 incredibly short time. A few young Bass will multiply so rapidly as to 

 stock a large lake in five years. The Potomac and its tributaries swarmed 

 with them ten years after their first introduction. 



A very suggestive incident occurred at the Brookline Reservoir, near 

 Boston. Nine Bass were introduced in July, 1S62. Four or five years 

 after, in examining the Avater-pipes leading thence to Long Pond, Bass in 

 considerable numbers and of large size were found ; and what is still 

 more strange, they had, either as young fish, or in the egg state, gone 

 through the screen at the mouth of the pipe and found their way into the 

 pond itself, having accomplished an underground journey of fifteen miles 

 through a brick aqueduct nowhere more. than six feet in diameter. 



Gill states that the two forms of Micropterus have long inhabited the waters 

 of the cismontane slope of the United States, except those of the New Eng- 

 land States and the Atlantic seaboard of the Middle States. Only one, 

 however, the Small-mouth, appears to have been an original inhabitant of 

 the hydrographic basin of the Ohio River. 



The Bass do not seem to depend closely on temperature. Having no 

 opportunity of avoiding the cold, they sink to the deepest part of their 

 watery domain at the approach of winter, and if the chill penetrates to 

 their retreat, their vitality is diminished, their blood flows more slowly, they 

 feel no need of food, and forthwith enter into a state of hybernation. 

 Mr. Fred. Mather kept one in his aquarium nearly all of one winter. It 

 ate nothing, and seldom moved any members except its eyes. In deep 

 lakes, however, they can sink below the reach of surface chills, and here 

 they are sometimes caught with a hook through the ice. In the South 

 their activity never ceases. Any one who has seen Black Bass feeding 

 must have been impressed with their immense power of movement. They 

 soon become masters of the waters in which they are placed. Sun-fish, 



