A merican Game-Fishes 



exist. It is no question of sport for the 

 many or for the few, but of sport for the 

 few or for none. Fish-preserves do not 

 (as has been charged against great game- 

 preserves) hinder any man's successful 

 bread-winning. They simply demand that 

 the flow of water be free and unpolluted, 

 and that the owner have the same right 

 to the fish he raises that his neighbor has 

 to his poultry. 



With the disappearance of the trout, 

 and perhaps because of it, the black bass 

 (or rather the black basses, for there are 

 two of them) has become the most gen- 

 erally popular of our fresh- water game-fish. 

 For ourselves, we cannot put it beside the 

 game salmonoids ; but these being hors con- 

 cours, it (meaning the small-mouth spe- 

 cies) is all in all better than any fish of its 

 weight found in fresh water. Its habitat 

 is naturally wide, extending both species 

 included through the basin of the Great 

 Lakes and the upper part of the St. Law- 

 rence, the Mississippi Basin and the South 

 Atlantic States, including the Florida pe- 

 ninsula. East of the Appalachian chain, 

 down to and including the Potomac, they 

 seem to have come only by man's help. 

 The earlier anglers of the Eastern States 

 did not know the fish ; but throughout that 

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