366 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OP FISH AND FISHERIES. 



It may be meutioned in tliis counectiou that a letter, prepared at the 

 request of the Hon. G. Q. Cannon, and bearing on this subject, has been 

 presented to the legislature of Utah. It suggests the enacting of cer- 

 tain laws with reference to the preservation of fish, &c., and that the 

 same be rigidly enforced when passed. 



No epidemic causing sickness or destruction of life among the trout 

 of Utah and Pangwitch Lakes has ever keen known, nor is this fish 

 ever affected with parasites, as are many of the marine species. I must 

 state, however, that I have been informed by a trustworthy friend that 

 the same fish of the lakes in the Yellowstone region is uneatable in the 

 summer, its flesh being riddled and filled with parasitic tape-worms of 

 considerable size, many, according to Dr. Leidy, being five inches in 

 length. Mr. Carrington, whose notes accompanied the specimens exam- 

 ined by Dr. Leidy, states that the smaller worms were contained in 

 cysts adherent to the exterior of the intestines, while the larger ones 

 up to six inches in length were found imbedded in the flesh. From five 

 to fifty of the parasites were found in a single fish. When numerous they 

 appeared to aflect the health of their host, and the fishes most infested 

 could generally be told by their duller color, meagreness and less activity. 

 JDr. Leidy states that this worm belongs to the geuus Bothriocephalus, 

 or rather to that section of it now named Dihothrium. Two species 

 have long been known as parasites of the salmon and other members of 

 the same genus of fishes in Europe ; but the tape-worm of the Yellow- 

 stone trout appears to be a difl'erent one, and may, from the shape of 

 its head, be named with propriety Dihothrium cordiceps. 



The trout of Utah Lake may be taken at nearly all seasons by both 

 hook and net at all times, but in Pangwitch Lake by hook only, since 

 fishing in any other way is prohibited by common consent. This, how- 

 ever, is no hardship, since large captures are easily made with the hook, 

 I myself having taken from thirty to forty pounds weight in a single 

 hour's fishing. The hooks used are simply large steel ones, with a 

 snood, or snell, ot piano- wire, which is strong and flexible. The best 

 bait is minnow and grasshopper, although this trout will bite at almost 

 anything. In Pangwitch Lake a fish's eye is considered a very tempt- 

 ing bait. The nets used in Utah Lake are made of Nos. 9, 12, and 

 18 cotton twine, are generally four hundred yards long, eight to ten 

 feet deep, and are furnished with brails at either end ; when employed 

 they are reeled into the Doats by means of a wooden windlass in the 

 stern. The average daily catch of one person with hook and line would 

 perhaps be twenty pounds, or about thirty-six hundred pounds the 

 entire season ; for a net of the dimensions above specified, one hundred 

 and fifty pounds daily in summer and thirty or forty in winter. 



This trout is highly prized by the settlers and miners of Utah, and 

 quite a large proportion of those taken are consumed in the immediate 

 neighborhood; the remainder is sent to the different mining camps, set- 

 tlements, and the Salt Lake City market. As an article of food its 



