FisJi and Fishing in America. 



65 



Black bass, trout and game fish general- 

 ly will never be plentiful enough to be 

 considered market fish. Under the 

 most advantageous circumstances, the 

 waters could not produce these fish in 

 quantities sufficiently large to bring 

 their price within the reach of the 

 working man. Carp can be raised in 

 such quantities and at the same time in 

 no way interfere with other fish. Carp 

 have not been a failure, but, on the con- 

 trary, have given to the people of our 

 State a greater food supply from the 

 waters than could have been produced 

 in any other way from the same area.' 



" The carp holds its own very well in 

 the large marketing centers of the 

 country, even when competing with 

 fishes whose game and food qualities 

 are well recognized. Reference to the 

 weekly quotations of the New York, 

 Philadelphia, and other markets will 

 usually show the carp rated above the 

 .cod, bluefish, squeteague, lake herring, 

 and many other highly esteemed fishes. 



" The aggregate expense to the govern- 

 ment connected with the introduction, 

 propagation, and distribution of carp in 

 the United States, to, and including the 

 year 1895, was $218,000, or about $20,000 

 yearly ; this sum includes equipment and 

 construction of ponds which have also 

 been used in the rearing of other fishes. 

 For this outlay, the available statistics 

 which are far from complete, show that 

 there is now an annual return of over 

 ^80,000 from public and private waters." 



It is a relief to turn froin the subject 

 of Cyprinoids proper, a somewhat 

 lengthy treatment of which is essential 

 in a work of this character, to their rel- 

 atives, the chub, the roach and the dim- 

 inutive gudgeon, all of which merit 

 attention as fishes that are caught on 

 hook and line, and, in the case of the 

 chub, because it is not estimated, in my 

 opinion, at its true value as a rod fish. 



TJie chub, fall-fish, sometimes called 

 roach, silver chub, wind-fish or corporal, 

 Seniotilns corporalis — the generic name 

 from the Greek signifying "banner" 

 and "spotted," and the specific from the 

 Latin, corporalis^ "pertaining to the 

 body" — is found from the Province of 

 Quebec to North Carolina, and is essen- 

 tially an Eastern fish, being, so far as 

 known, never seen in waters west of the 

 Alleghanies. It is the largest of our 

 Eastern cyprinoids, but not the species 

 most frequently met with by the stream 

 fisherman, that being the creek chub or 

 horned dace, 5. airoinaculatus, hereafter 

 described. The fall fish is found every- 

 where in the Middle States in the 

 smaller brooks, and in larger streams. 

 As the Eastern angler will meet with 

 three forms of large chubs, indiscrimin- 

 ately and locally called roach, dace and 

 chub, and that he many know one from 

 the other, I have given black and white 

 drawings of each, and a portrait, color- 

 ed, as in life, of one of them, with such 

 textual descriptions as will render the 

 study of their physical markings less 

 difficult. 



The maximum weight and size of the 

 chub, S. corporalis, are undetermined. 

 It certainly grows to a length of twenty 

 inches, and a weight of three pounds. 

 Mr. Louis Papineau, of Monte Bello, 

 Canada, wrote me that he had taken one 

 of three and a half pounds in Canadian 

 waters, and in New Hampshire, in one 

 of the outlets of Lake Winnipiseogee, 

 he had caught several speciinens weigh- 

 ing three pounds. These weights would 

 seem to set the record for the chub of 

 American waters, and, giving the fish 

 referred to fostering conditions of food 

 and habitat, which they evidently had, 

 we can not doubt the statement of Mr. 

 Papineau, more particularly from the 

 fact that the chub of England, which is 

 closely allied to ours, has been taken 



