626 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



The commissioners of tlie State of Rhode Island, since 1870, have 

 stocked thirty ponds or small lakes in different parts of the State with 

 the black bass. 



In Maine, inthe fall of 1869, the State commissioners and the Oquossoc 

 Angling Associatiou introduced from is'ewburgh, N. Y., a quantity of black 

 bass. The waters of Duck Pond, at Falmouth ; Fitz Pond, in Dedham ; 

 IS^ewport and Phillips Ponds, Cochnewagan Pond in Monmouth ; Cob- 

 bosseecontee Lake, in Winthrop and adjoining towns, were stocked, 

 and a few years afterward were reported to have increased largely in 

 numbers. 



Since the year 1871 black bass {Micropterus mlmoldes) and Osweg, 

 bass {Microjiterus nigricans) have been put into seventy lakes, ponds, or 

 streams of the State of New York by the commissioners. They had 

 made their way of their own accord through the canals connecting Lake 

 Erie with the Hudson into that stream. 



Private citizens of Pennsylvania introduced the black bass [Microp- 

 terus salmoides) into the Susquehanna about 1800, at Harrisburg. In 

 1873 the tributaries of the Susquehanna, the Potomac, and Delaware 

 Eivers were supplied with black bass by the commissioners at thirty- 

 five different points. 



In the year 1854 Mr. William Shriver, of Wheeling, Va., planted in 

 the canal basin at Cumberland, Va., his former home, a number of the 

 black bass, {Micropterus salmoides ;) from the basin they escaped into the 

 Potomac River, where they have increased immensely at the i^resent 

 day. They were moved from the waters of the Ohio River to their new 

 locality in the tank of a locomotive. ISTumerous cases have also occurred 

 of transfer from one locality in the Southern States to another. 



There have been very many transfers of these valuable species that 

 have not been recorded, as they are easily kept alive while being moved 

 from one place to another, and propagate surely and rapidly in ponds, 

 lakes, and rivers. 



These details are given because they show the facility with whicli 

 comparatively barren waters may be stocked to a considerable extent 

 with good food-fishes, and they exhibit the general interest and attention 

 that have been given to this mode of propagation. 



The tvall-eijed or glass-eyed pike. — The wall-eyed pike [Stizostediiim 

 americammi) is another species that has received favor for this purpose. 

 It is a fine-flavored fish, somewhat predatory in its habit, and not so 

 generally adaptable to waters of all characters as the black bass. In 

 the great lakes and rivers, where it finds a favorable home, it multiplies 

 to a much greater extent than the latter species. It had been introduced 

 in some of the lakes of New Hampshire, New York, and other States. 



The eel. — The eel, {AnguiUa hostoniensis,) appreciated in some localities 

 and much vilified in others, is another species that has been frequently 

 transplanted. It is pretty evident that it never existed naturally in the 



