^■" 



THE TALE OF THE FISHES 



the silent river under the demitints of the soundless 

 forest. 



The missing link between these two fishes that I 

 confidently designate as such, is the pale gray or silver 

 trout of Dublin Pond, N. H., called after the great 

 naturalist Salvelinus agassizii Since the country was 

 opened and its fish fauna were noted by man, the 

 brook trout and this unique salmonoid have lived to- 

 gether in the cold, deep (125 ft.) spring- fed pond 

 under the shadow of Monadnock mountain. The two 

 species have used the same spawning beds from date 

 immemorial, though at different times, and have never 

 hybridized. Under similar conditions, the Alpine and 

 the brook trout have co-existed in Lake Sunapee, the 

 ancestral fish following, like man and the higher mam- 

 malia, but by watery channels, the retreating ice fields, 

 and swarming into the granite basin of this lake exca- 

 vated anew for its reception by the erosive power of 

 the glacier and filled with melting snows. Here it was 

 all but exterminated, owing to the depredations of its 

 enemies, the yellow perch and the miller's thumb, when 

 black bass were introduced in 1868 to destroy these 

 enemies in turn and afford it a chance to increase. Fish 



31 



