THE PIKES : DTSTRIBUTTON AND COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE. 33 



why other fish were not affected. A contributor to a sportsman's 

 paper (Maine Woods, 1907) offered a decidedly striking explanation 

 of the decrease of Umbagog Lake pickerel: 



It is a well-known fact that the pickerel that inhabit Umbagog Lake are dying 

 off rapidly. One man who is familiar with the lake advances the theory that they 

 are being killed by hornpouts and this in a very peculiar way. This man says there 

 are millions of hornpouts in Umbagog and that the pickerel devour them. He says: 

 "The horns on the hornpout are always straightened out when the fish is in trouble, 

 and this causes the death of the pickerel"— that they are "hooked to death." 



It is doubtful if this hornpout is even a contributory factor in the 

 death of the fish, and certainly there would not be epidemics of 

 "hooking to death." The cause of such epidemics must be sought 

 for by careful study of the fish and prevailing conditions, and even 

 then it may not be revealed. 



A gradual decrease in number and size of fish is more easily 

 explained. The habits of the pickerel expose it to more dangers 

 than are incurred by most other kinds of fresh-water fishes. To 

 whatever extent it does or does not sustain its reputation for fierce 

 and gluttonous voracity, those very qualities are its undoing. What- 

 ever may have been its abihty to maintain its existence in undisturbed 

 natural conditions before man's attention was directed its way, the 

 ease with which it is caught with any kind of lure, particularly in the 

 winter and spring when congregated in restricted areas, have been 

 decidedly adverse factors. Wholesale ice fishing has hastened its 

 decrease by the destruction of practically every fish in the limited 

 area and those larger fish which would have spawned that spring. 

 Here, too, is the cause of decrease in size. The majority of large fish 

 are caught, few succeed in spawning, and their progeny are in turn 

 caught before they have had time to reach a large size. Conse- 

 quently, there is a progressive decrease in number and size. While 

 those that succeed in breeding deposit large numbers of eggs, doubtless 

 but few survive. The character of the egg masses and their exposed 

 situation in shallow water subject them to the ravages of other fishes, 

 such as suckers, chubs, perch, etc., as well as reptiles and waterfowl. 

 A superintendent of one of the Pennsylvania hatcheries wrote that 

 he estimated that fully 10 per cant of eggs deposited are devoured 

 by other fishes before they are hatched and that storms sometimes 

 sweep the eggs from where they are deposited and float them ashore, 

 where they rot. He stated that he had seen hundreds of milUons 

 of eggs thus washed ashore and lost. But the reduction does not 

 end there, for the fry from the time it is hatched is the common 

 pray not only of various fishes, including its own kind, but also of 

 reptiles, birds, and other animals. One would not suspect the 

 common, toothless, innocent chub or so-called dace {Semotilus 

 hullaris) of being a serious enemy of a fish that has been stated to 



