132 MAY 



that he may haul on his tackle as hard as he likes 

 without risk of fracture. 



The accounts brought to this country of sport 

 with black bass in North American waters prompted 

 the experiment of naturalising them on this side of 

 the Atlantic. They are fish of the perch tribe, 

 armed with the characteristic spiny dorsal fin, ex- 

 ceedingly active and voracious, and producing flesh 

 said to resemble that of the haddock. They are 

 more powerful and grow far larger than our perch, 

 which is the only British fish able to live on nearly 

 equal terms in enclosed waters with pike ; and, as a 

 sporting fish, the black bass is said to be no whit 

 inferior to trout, though accounts differ as to their 

 readiness to rise at the fly. Most of those taken, it 

 is believed, come at a spinning bait. 



Black bass have been established for some years 

 at Lord Exeter's ponds at Burghley, and in 1892 it 

 was decided to introduce them into Scottish waters. 

 In the spring of that year a pond about one hundred 

 and fifty yards long was cleaned out for their recep- 

 tion and left dry during the summer. The bottom 

 was well limed to destroy, as far as possible, every 

 vestige of eels and other fish, and the water was run 

 back in September. In November a consignment of 



