THE CISCO OP GENEVA LAKE. 



363 



Superior,* and from extensive inquiry, it is not known to 

 exist anywhere else but in Geneva Lake, Wisconsin. N. P. 

 Fairbanks, Esq., of Chicago, a gentleman of wealth, who 

 has a summer residence on this beautiful lake, has erected a 

 hatching-house for the purpose of perpetuating this and 

 other 6sh : 500,000 salmon-trout, white-fish, brook-trout, 

 black and Oswego basse, and California salmon, have lately 

 been placed in the lake, and 2,000,000 more are being pre- 

 pared for another season, making this the greatest fishing- 



* After being informed on good authority that the Cisco of Lake 

 Snperior was entirely distinct from those of Geneva Lake, I find 

 in an article in Scribner'e Monthly for April, 1876, from the pen of 

 Martin A. Howell, the following paragraph tending to identify the 

 two descriptions a» one and the same species : 



" It is a fact, well known to many who have visited Northern 

 "Wisconsin, that there are lakes near Superior whose waters rise 

 and fall with those of Superior. At Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, it is 

 well known that a fish known as the 'Cisco' comes and departs 

 at regular periods every year. It remains a few days and is gone. 

 These same fieh are found in Lake Superior only, and it is believed 

 by many that there is a subterranean passage by which they come 

 and return." 



A writer in the Milwaukee Sentinel, of March 20th, commenting 

 on the above, has the following: "In July, 1873, cisco were ob- 

 served in the Troy Lakes, Walworth County, Wisconsin, and when 

 the dam at the foot of the lakes broke away in March, 1874, great 

 quantities of cisco were carried out of the smaller lake into the 

 stream below. A small dark culvert was thrown over the stream 

 at the foot of the lake, and under this the cisco crowded in such 

 numbers that the boys of the neighborhood scooped them out by 

 the bushel. As almost every one in the neighborhood had been to 

 Geneva Lake in the cisco-season, there can be no doubt that these 

 flsh were the 'true cisco. 1 The fact that they were found here in 

 March, coupled with the fact that they crowded under the culvert, 

 into darkness, convinced me that the fish lived in deep water 

 most of the ye-'r. and came lo the surface in 'cisco-timc.'" 



