1 82 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



the fact that it is much easier to put fish into a water then to get the same fish out 

 afterwards, when they have proven to be unfit for the water. The carp is a good fish 

 in its place, but its place is not in trout or black bass waters. The chairman of the 

 Fisheries Committee of the Tuxedo Club tells me that he has seen large carp push 

 black bass from their spawning beds, while in the act of spawning, in order to eat the 

 spawn. 



About ten or twelve years ago I wrote an article in one of the angling journals 

 declaring that black bass changed color at will to conform to the color of their environ- 

 ment, in the same manner as the brook trout. I discovered the fact quite by chance, 

 and published it with a feeling that the statement would be challenged; for it was, so 

 far as I knew, an absolutely new observation, then printed for the first time, and only 

 a little while before an elaborate article had been published on the coloration of the 

 black bass to show that bass in diflferent waters, with different food, etc., were of 

 different colors. 



While this is true, as every bass fisherman knows, if all the various colored 

 bass, with vertical bars and lateral bands, finger marks, dark spots, etc., were placed 

 together alive in one vessel, in ten minutes all would become the same color. This I 

 have observed over and over since I first noticed it in the well of a fishing boat in the 

 fall of the year. 



In fish cultural operations, for instance w^ith trout, the State takes from a lake a 

 certain quantity of eggs, and when the eggs are hatched twenty per cent, or more of 

 the fry from the eggs are returned to the lake ; the benefit to the lake will be greater 

 than if all the eggs were left in the water, to be hatched by natural processes. 



This is not the case with black bass. If the State Commission plants black bass, 

 so many fish, adult or fry, must be taken from one water and planted in another, for 

 there is no percentage of the fry to be returned to the parent water. What is gain to 

 one water is dead loss to the other. Under the circumstances, much care is exercised 

 by the Fisheries, Game and Forests Commission in transferring black bass from one 

 water to another, and many of the bass planted in State waters have been obtained 

 from waters without the State. From 1873 to 1894, both inclusive, a period of 

 twenty-two years, the State planted 73,287 black bass in its interior waters, an average 

 of 3,331 bass each year. During the two years of the existence of the present 

 Commission 41,678 black bass have been planted in the State, an average of 20,839 

 bass each year. 



To show the distribution of black bass in State waters by the State would 

 require considerable space, if all the waters' were mentioned, and would perhaps 

 serve no good purpose, but I propose to mention some of the waters that have been 

 stocked, to show how widely the distribution has been made. 



