TRANSPLANTING 85 



I then caught thirty-three small-mouthed bass, some with 

 hook and line, a few with a net, varying in length from eight 

 to eighteen inches and in weight from six ounces to three 

 pounds. 



There were probably an equal number of males and 

 females. These I placed in the pond about the last week of 

 September. 



The following spring there were at least a dozen nests at 

 different points on the shore, and during the summer I saw 

 hundreds of small bass, varying in length from one to three 

 inches, swimming about in shoals. The screen was finally 

 removed and the bass gradually escaped into the lake. 



This experiment convinced me that the proper method 

 of stocking any pond or lake is to hatch the bass in water of a 

 similar character and transfer them when they are two to four 

 inches in length; but I doubt whether any s»iaU pond will 

 support small-mouthed bass for a great period of time, even 

 with every artificial contrivance known. 



What these fish seem to require more than any other 

 species is clean, cool, running water. They may live without 

 it for a length of time; but it is as essential to them as fresh 

 air is to human beings, and probably acts on them in a sim- 

 ilar way. 



Transferring adult fish from one lake, where the water is 

 perhaps dark and soft, to another lake where it is clear and 

 hard, or vice versa, certainly does not seem reasonable. The 

 small-mouthed bass is doubtless affected by slight variations 

 in the chemical and mechanical structure of the water as it 

 is by slight variations of temperature, and it is for this reason, 

 I think, that large numbers of this fish which have been 

 shipped in tanks, during the spawning season, from one lake 

 to another, have never developed as -they should and have 

 gradually disappeared in course of time. 



To transfer fry or small bass, four to eight inches in length, 

 from one water to another, is certainlv more likelv to sue- 



