4 INLAND FISHERIES COMMISSIONERS’ REPORT. 
fry from Mr. C. A. Hoxie. These were distributed by us and parties 
applying to us for them, in the various streams of the State at Westerly, 
Wickford, Newport, Pascoag, North, South and West Kingston. Each 
year we receive more applications for trout fry, showing an increasing 
interest in the State’s efforts at restocking its waters with valuable 
food fishes. 
BLACK BASS. 
This excellent fish with which we have had the best of success in 
stocking the ponds in our State is gradually growing in favor. The 
many objections advanced against it as a food fish and as being destruc- 
tive to our ordinary pond fish are being fast dissipated. In this con- 
nection we quote the following from Shooting and Fishing. 
‘*This distinctly American fish was first classified on foreign soil by foreign 
godfathers, and the French naturalist, Lacépéde, builded better perhaps than he 
knew when, through the mistake in its local name, he called the Black Bass 
‘trout-like.’ It certainly is not like a trout in form or color, but like the trout 
it has taken firm hold of the affections of anglers who admire its superlative 
game qualities on the hook, and its gastronomical qualities when hot from the 
broiler. 
There is little doubt that, if it is not already, the Black Bass will be in the 
future the popular game fish of this country. Dr. Henshall speaks with no 
uncertain sound when he declares it is to be ‘the best game fish of America.’ 
Unlike the Brook Trout, the Black Bass is neither timid nor retiring in its 
habits; it is a fish of civilization and not of the forests and remote mountain 
streams; one finds it in the lakes and rivers, and even canals, which float on 
their surface our vessels of commerce, and it is a fish accessible to the great body 
of anglers. The original distribution of the Black Bass we believe to have been 
only in large bodies of water, lakes and rivers, where they found wide range and 
an abundance of food. The disappointments attending the transplanting of this 
fish have come largely, if not entirely, from planting them in ponds and streams 
too small for them, and affording insufficient food. 
The most serious charges that have been brought against the Black Bass are 
that they destroy other species of fish and kill for the love of killing. The latter 
charge never has been proven, and as to the former let Dr. Henshall testify: ‘I 
wish to say a word in this connection in reference to objections heretofore urged 
against the introduction of the Black Bass into Eastern waters, upon the theory 
