FOURTEENTH ANNUAL MEETING. 57 



water in these lakes, but Effner lake seems to have the poor- 

 est supply of fish food. Lake George black bass stocked Long 

 pond, and afterward Long pond stocked Round pond. Long 

 pond bass are least gamy of the fish in the three waters, but 

 they are far the largest. Long pond is just a mass of fish food, 

 and the water is warm and thick. On the contrary, Round 

 pond, forty rods away, is a great spring of clear, cold water, 

 lacking outlet or inlet, with an abundance of fish food, and the 

 bass therein, while not exceeding in size the Lake George bass, 

 fight like fiends when hooked. 



Without further multiplying instances, I think it prudent to 

 say that when black bass in alien waters are found to possess 

 superior game qualities, it is because they have found better 

 pasturage or better water than in the homestead. 



Hudson river pike {£. lucius) were used to stock Schroon 

 lake and river, and both furnish pike of greater growth than 

 the parent waters, but one cannot compare their game qualities, 

 for they have none. 



It is natural, perhaps, that the quiet lake waters should be 

 more conducive to aldermanic proportions in the pike than is 

 the rapid river water, but a recent local newspaper states that 

 Schroon river has produced a larger pike than the lake. 



Oneida pond was also stocked with pike from the Hudson, and 

 it has yielded these fresh-water sharks of greater size than those 

 from any of the other waters I have named. The pond is small 

 and the pike soon cleaned out the food, and then commenced a 

 warfare of the survival of the one with the largest mouth. The 

 large fish have been caught, and those that remain are all of the 

 same size, with the clefts in the mouth yearning to extend back 

 to the dorsal fin. 



I have somewhere seen a statement, and I think it was in one 

 of the reports of the New York State Fish Commission, that 

 whenever the New York lakes containing a remnant of lake 

 trout have had a contribution of lake trout fry from the great 

 lakes, the addition or deposit has increased the average size of 

 the trout in such waters. This, at least, is the idea that has 

 been fixed in my mind from reading the statement ; but I do 

 not think that it was coupled with, or contingent upon, au ad- 



