1893. | NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 148 
largely on the eggs and fry of the lake-spawning charr. At the 
spring hatching-time these perch held carnival among the help- 
less alévins, almost effecting, by their periodic ravages, the 
extermination of the white trout. But as the black bass 
increased in number, they fell upon the perch in turn, until the 
lake was virtually rid of this voracious pest. Thus the trout, 
which had been reduced to the verge of annihilation, had a 
chance to increase. The black bass did not interfere with it 
for two reasons : 
I. Both bass and trout have an abundance of easily caught 
and tasteful food in the land-locked smelts, which have multi- 
plied since their introduction until now they literally school in 
millions. 
II. Bass and trout are not found in the same sections of water 
at the same time, the trout keeping in a temperature of 42° to 
45° (on the surface in May, 60 feet below in July and August); 
the bass preferring 65° to 70° in summer, and hibernating in 
winter and during the spring hatching time of trout. Thus 
freed from persecution, the saibling has increased, until it is 
now present in myriads. This is the most ingenious of all the 
explanations that have been advanced. It is based on facts 
throughout, and is difficult of overthrow, especially when 
coupled with a theory of the writer's, that after the introduction 
of smelts, about twenty years ago, the saibling, if native, learned 
so far to change their habits as to rise from the depths and 
follow this food fish to the shores during May and June, thus 
increasing the chances of discovery. Wherever the smelt 
schools, there the saibling will be found. An axiom of the 
Sunapee fisherman is: ‘Hold the smelts and you will hold 
the trout,’”’ so the smelts are baited in certain localities during 
the fishing season. 
This theory of Colonel Hodge encounters but a single 
objection, viz.: If the perch and saibling have been fellows in 
the Sunapee basin since its excavation during the Glacial Epoch, 
why was not the process of extermination completed centu- 
ries ago? 
It must have been in the case of other lakes on the same 
primeval water-shed, unless we are prepared to admit that an 
anadromous fish became land-locked in one inland lake alone, 
while avoiding other bodies of water much more accessible 
and equally compatible. Geology proves that Sunapee once 
discharged its waters through Newbury summit, and thus was 
tributary to the Merrimac. Hence it is fair to assume that 
when these trout migrated, following like man and the larger 
mammalia, but through watery channels, the retreating ice- 
