34 Tu'cnfy-si.vfli Annual Meeting 



Mr. Titcornb: With reference to epidemics, I will say a word 

 about our experience in Vermont. We have not had an oppor- 

 tunity to study it there. l)ut the Professor's remarks upon that 

 tliought are very interesting to me. We have one lake inhabited 

 by trcut and bullheads — the bullheads were evidently artificially 

 introduced. It is not a natural pond for them, but the bullheads 

 throve there for years, until last year there A\as an epidemic. No 

 trout died. The bullheads in that lake came to the surface and 

 lined the shore in the same way you descril^e, only in less quan- 

 tities. In rmother lake in Vermont we had an epidemic among 

 the perch in the same way you describe, although not in any such 

 quantities, and the third time, three years ago, we had still an- 

 other epidemic among bullheads in a sort of dead creek which 

 is tributary to Lake Champlain. The bullheads in Lake Cham- 

 plai.i, in clear w-aters, are delicious food fish. W^e call them the 

 "poor man's hsh" there, because they catch them all the time 

 through the summer, night and day, but in this dead creek, one 

 of those sluggish waters, they taste of the dirt and are foul. We 

 never ha\e investigated the causes of these epidemics. In fact, 

 in the case of a trout pond, where an epidemic occurred, it is the 

 so.irct^ of water supply for quite a large town, and the corpora- 

 tio 1 officials are very careful to remove those fish as rapidly as 

 possible, to keep the people of the town ignorant of the condi- 

 tion. So, I did not get hold of it until afterwards. l)ut if it is a 

 question of foul water, it seems to me it endangers the sanitary 

 ccrditioli of the w^ater supply of that town. 



Professor Birge: That is not necessarily true. If you will 

 look into the reports of the Massachusetts Water Conmiissioners, 

 you will find that they say the water supply must be taken from 

 the upper surface, that the lower water will be unfit to drink in 

 later sunmier. 



Mr. Titcomb: There is a question that comes up in connec- 

 tion with my investigations. I always thought, for the purpose 

 of getting a constant water supply of large volume and even tem- 

 perature, you must take the water from a large lake to which 

 trout, for instance, are indigenous, and taking it from the lower 

 depth or stratum, where the water remains at a constant tempera- 

 ture of 48, you get a sufficient amount or sufficient volume to 

 run a hatchery to an unlimited extent. 



Professor Birge: That would depend entirely upon your 

 lake. If you have a large supply of spring water coming in 



