HABITS OF THE BLACK BASS. 53 



more of these small-mouth giants from the same waters 

 (Long pond, or Glen lake), near Glens Falls, New York. 



One of them, taken by a police officer and two comrades, 

 was seen and weighed by Mr. Cheney, who gives its pro- 

 portions as follows : weight, eight and one-quarter pounds ; 

 length, from end of snout, to fork of tail-fin, twenty-two 

 and one-half inches ; girth, eighteen and one-half inches. 

 Mr. Fred Mather saw this fish and pronounced it a small- 

 mouthed Bass. 



The other and larger fish was captured in the same waters 

 b}' a Mr. Boynton, and is probably the largest small-mouthed 

 Bass of which there is any positive evidence. Mr. Cheney 

 Aveighed and measured it and gives its weight as eight 

 pounds and ten ounces, its extreme length as twenty-five 

 inches, and its girth eighteen and three-fourths inches. 



Mr. H. W. Ross, when in Florida, caught, in a " clear, 

 deep, lily-bound lake," near Altoona, in that state, a large- 

 mouthed Black Bass Avhich, he states, weighed twenty-three 

 and one-eighth pounds, and measured, from tip of nose to 

 tip of tail, thirty-seven and one-half inches, and in girth, 

 twenty-nine and one-half inches. The head of this fish 

 was sent to the ofiice of " Forest and Stream," in New 

 York, and its dimensions were given by the editor as fol- 

 lows : " Its maxillary bone measures four and three-fourths 

 inches ; the head is seven and one-half inches from the tip 

 of the upper jaw to the end of the opercle, and the lower 

 jaw projects one inch. The greatest girth of the head is 

 sixteen and one-half inches." 



Since the publication of " The Book of the Black Bass," 

 I have killed, with the fly, the large-mouth Bass of Florida 

 up to fourteen pounds, and have seen larger ones taken 



