688 AMERICAN ANGLER'S BOOK 



average size of a half-pound in a yoai'. At present (twelve months 

 later) their usual size is not much less than a pound ; many even 

 exceed that weight by two or three ounces. He very naturally sup- 

 poses that the small fish keep in the shallow water at the head of the 

 pond or the rivulet supplying it. I noticed in angling that this was 

 the case; and when the size was not satisfactory we would move 

 our cast nearer the breast of the dam, where the water was of 

 greater depth. I think I may safely say, that our catch of seventy- 

 eight fish in the two ponds alluded to would have weighed seventy 

 pounds — also that the growth of these fish was a third more rapid 

 than they would have been in a brisk mountain stream. 



STOCKING PONDS AND LAKELETS WITH BLACK BASS. 



In my remarks on stocking ponds, in the article on fish breeding, 

 on page 461, I have mentioned the f;ict that the Southern Bass 

 ( Grystes sahnoides) was transferred from the James River in the 

 vicinity of Richmond, and placed in mill-ponds near Warrenton, a 

 hundred miles distant. It is gratifying to know that the gentle- 

 man who contributes the subjoined observations has had the enter- 

 prise to introduce its congener, the Black Bass of the Lakes {Grystes 

 nigricans), into the lakelets around West Point. It is also strange 

 that the State of New York, when the European Carp was intro- 

 duced into its waters, should have endeavored to protect it by legal 

 enactment, when this '• native," which furnishes an infinite deal 

 of sport, while the Carp gives none, and whose flesh is so much 

 superior to any fish of the Carp family, should have been left to take 

 care of itself. The following article will show that our native should 

 be encouraged to emigrate, and that, having established a pre-emp- 

 tionary right to its new home, all it requires is " to be let alone ;" 

 and that in a few years it will furnish sport which is not inferior to 

 Trout fly-fishing on the lakes of Hamilton and Franklin counties in 

 the same state ; besides giving people adjacent to its adopted waters 

 a food, the excellence of which is not surpassed by any of the Perch 

 family. 



