236 BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES ElSH COMMISSION. 



tion, and the ponds be allowed to remain bare during the winter to increase the 

 quantity of insect life to serve as food for the next year's crop. Whatever necessity 

 there is to avoid leaving any carp in the nursery or growing pond, the necessity is 

 increased many fold in the case of the bass. The pond should be drawn very slowly, 

 every opportunity allowed the fish to follow the receding water, and every circum- 

 stance avoided which would tend to frighten the fish into burrowing into the mud. 

 Under fright the bass will burrow into the mud and live there an incredible length of 

 time. Some three years ago we used a pond for bass one season, and when it was con- 

 cluded to use it for shad the following season it was drawn off in the autumn to harvest 

 the young and thoroughly rid it of bass. Unusual precaution was exercised to remove 

 every fish. The pond was left empty for three weeks exposed to the frosts and winds 

 of November, until the mud was dry and cross-checked. The pond was then filled, 

 and in December 200 tons of ice were cut from it. To make assurance doubly sure 

 the pond was again drawn in the following April and left empty for ten days. The 

 young shad were introduced the first week in June. By the first of August it was 

 noticed that other fish than shad were jumping for the flies in the dusk of early morn- 

 ing and evening. One hundred and fifty bass, averaging half a pound each, were 

 captured from this pond, from which all the bass had been so carefully removed. There 

 were no means within the limits of reasonable probability for 150 fish to have gotten into 

 this pond, except by having burrowed in the mud and lived there several weeks while 

 it was drying. 





