36 BULLETIN OF THE NATUEAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



One of the best known fish of the Miramichi and St. John 

 is the striped bass {Roccus Uneatus, Bloch), attaining in the 

 former river, perhaps, its greatest perfection of delicacy and 

 flavor — an excellence doubtless due to its food, the smelt 

 {Osmerus mordax, Mitchell), with which the bays and estu- 

 aries swarm. This species has a very wide distribution, 

 ranging from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

 Though ascending some rivers, as the St. John, far above the 

 influence of the salt water, its fluviatile movements on the 

 Miramichi are wholly confined to brackish water, but, unlike 

 salmon, shad, etc., which retreat, on the approach of winter, 

 to the deep and warmer waters of the ocean, the bass enters 

 the mouths of rivers, and ascends to the very heads of their 

 estuaries, where the temperature must be many degrees colder 

 than outside. This singular habit has not been satisfactorily 

 explained. The fishermen of the Atlantic States of America 

 and some ichthyologists, especially DeKay, are of the opinion 

 they hibernate, buried, or partially so, in soft muddy bottoms; 

 and it is a strange coincidence that the Acadian French, 

 dwelling around the mouth of the Big Tracadie, Gloucester 

 County, N. B., hold the same views. This common belief of 

 people so far isolated and having little intercourse, if any at 

 all, would seem to arise from an observation of facts; yet the 

 writer's investigations and enquiries have failed to find a well 

 attested case in support of this theory. Others solve the pro- 

 blem by asserting that the bass is peculiarly insensible to cold. 

 G. Brown Goode, of the Smithsonian Institution, is rather 

 inclined to this view. It is not clear, however, that such is 

 a fact; for under some conditions they are very sensitive to 

 sudden changes, and the power of bearing a low temperature 

 seems in proportion to size and age — the larger fish being 

 the least affected. The latter are found at the head of the 

 estuary where the fresh water, little affected by the ebb and 

 flow of the tide, must fall to a low temperature ; the June fry 

 congregate in the lower part in the deeper, brackish or salt, 

 and warmer waters; between these extremes the rest are found 

 distributed according to size. During a thaw, when, owing 



