124 Thirtieth Annual Meeting 



here has said, tliat the l)hK-k bass will increase as a result of the 

 presence of the carp, but we will see a depletion of the perch. 

 As I said in my paper, you must go back to the vegetable for the 

 rehabilitation of waters. If you destroy vegetation and the 

 larvae, you destroy the minnows, and the perch have no min- 

 nows to feed on, unless they can eat the young of the carp, which 

 they do not appear to do, but the black bass will eat the young of 

 the carp and will thrive. Therefore you may look for an increase 

 of the black bass, a decrease of the minnows, and also of those 

 fish that feed upon the smaller minnows. I shall look for that 

 in the balance of life that would naturally occur in a stream like 

 the one described. That the carp do make the water roily goes 

 without question. The old German (Hessel) who brought the 

 first carp to this country told me in Washington that a clear carp 

 pond would be an anomaly. They stir up the mud at the bottom 

 of the stream, and live on the larval and vegetal)le life they find 

 there. I believe then that the black bass will certainly increase 

 with the carp unless the carp gets so numerous as to feed on the 

 bass beds. Of course with a carp weighing twelve or fifteen 

 pounds, an ordinary l)lack bass weighing four or five pounds will 

 not have much show. 



Mr. Clark : Yes, he would. 



Dr. Parker: He might whack away at him — they are not a 

 very scary fish. I think that the carp has got more brains in 

 his head than any other fish that swims. When I was on the 

 commission over at Glenwood where they had the beds I tried 

 time and again watching the carp that would be feeding on the 

 edge of the pond there, by starting the slash-board, and every 

 one of them would put right for the center of the stream, know- 

 ing at once where they were safe. I experimented a good deal 

 with them and they are certainly the most wily fish I ever met. 



^fr. Titcomlj : I just want to make a statement about the 

 bass, because this talk will l)e read not only with interest by 

 al^sent members, but by sportsmen everywhere. The doctor inti- 

 mated that a bass would not keep a twelve or fifteen pound carp 

 off from the spawning bed. I want to make the statement, and 

 if I am not correct I want to be corrected here, that the bass uses 

 his dorsal fin as a weapon of attack and defense, and when a two 



