40 
ling has increased, until it is now present in miyriads. 
This is the most ingenious of all the explanations that 
have been advanced. It is based on facts throughout, and 
is difficult of overthrow, especially when coupled with a 
theory of the writer’s—that after the introduction of 
smelts, about 20 years ago, the saibling, if native, learned 
so far to change their habits as to rise from the depths and 
follow this food fish to the shores during May and June, 
thus increasing the chances of discovery. Wherever the 
smelt schools, there the saibling will be found. An axiom 
of the Sunapee fisherman is: ‘‘ Hold the smelts and you 
will hold the trout,”’ so the smelts are baited in certain lo- 
calities during the fishing season. 
This theory of Col. Hodge encounters but a single objec- 
tion, viz., if the perch and saibling have been fellows in 
the Sunapee basin since its excavation during the Glacial 
Epoch, why was not the process of extermination com- 
pleted centuries ago? It must have been in the case of 
other lakes on the same primeval watershed, unless we are 
prepared to admit that an anadromous fish became land- 
locked in one inland lake alone, while avoiding other 
bodies of water much more accessible and equally compat- 
ible. Geology proves that Sunapee once discharged its 
waters through Newbury summit, and thus was tributary 
to the Merrimac. Hence, it is fair to assume that when 
these trout migrated, following like man and the larger 
mammalia, but through watery channels, the retreating 
ice-fields and glaciers, they swarmed into many lake-basins, 
where they became extinct before the advent of the white 
man. Were perch the instruments of extermination? If 
so, why did they not put in as thorough work at Sunapee ? 
It is but right to state at this point that the history of 
the charr in some European lakes is the history of a fish 
that has disappeared within the memory of man. This is 
notably the case at Loch Leven, once the home of a charr 
