CHAPTER XXX 

 THE BLACK BASS 



' Do but fish this stream like an artist and peradventure a good fish may- 

 fall to your share.' 



Izaak Walton. 



WHILE these lines were being written, I received from 

 Prince Pierre d'Arenberg, President of the Casting 

 Club of France, several photographs of himself, kindly taken for 

 this volume, showing, as he tells me, the first black bass taken 

 with a fly in Prance. This in 1912, yet in 1802 the great authority 

 on fish, Lacep^de, described this fish for the first time, and 

 had the honour of naming it, Micropterus dolomieu, the first 

 term meaning small fin, as that of the fish received was worn 

 away, as can be seen in the type specimen still in the Museum 

 of Natural History of Paris. The specific name was given in 

 honour of M. Dolomieu, the celebrated French savant. 



Doubtless, the original home of the bass was in the Great 

 Lake region of America. From here it has migrated and been 

 transported to most parts of America, England, France, Australia. 

 I have seen it in Southern California in reservoirs, one in par- 

 ticular, that in the beautiful place of Judge Silent in the San 

 Gabriel Valley, where the fish are so large, plump and tame, and 

 rush to the surface with such vivacity for the pieces of meat with 

 which they are fed, that it gives the angler an itching palm. 



Most of my black bass days have been spent on the St. 

 Lawrence, between Clayton and Alexandria Bay, not so good a 

 locality as many ; that is, there were not so many fish to be had. 

 The locality is one of the most delightful in America, the maze 

 of beautiful islands of all sizes and shapes, filling the wide river, 



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