404 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



10 o'cloct a. m., sold and wrapped in paper, left in a warm room till 5 p. m., when they were 

 found to be alive and well.' 



The first experiment in their transportation seems to have been that mentioned by A. M. Val- 

 entine, who states that a pond near Janesville, Wisconsin, was stocked with Black Bass about 1847.^ 

 In 1850, Mr. S. T. Tisdale carried twenty-seven Large-mouths from Saratoga Lake, New York, to 

 Flax Pond, in Agawam, Massachusetts. The manner in which the Potomac was stocked with 

 Small-mouths is also well known. It was in 1853, soon after the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 

 was finished, that General W. W. Shriver, of Wheeling, carried a number of young fish from the 

 Ohio to Cumberland, Maryland, in the water tank of a locomotive engine. These he placed in 

 the basin of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, whence they soon penetrated to all parts of the 

 Potomac Basin, and as far down the river as Mount Vernon.' The custom of stocking streams 

 soon became popular, and through private enterprise and the labors of State fish commissioners 

 nearly every available body of water in New England and the Middle States has been filled with 

 these fish. This movement has not met with universal approval, for by the ill-advised enthusiasm 

 of some of its advocates a number of trout streams have been destroyed, and complaints are 

 heard that the fisheries of certain rivers have been injured by them. The results have been on the 

 whole very beneficial. The Bass never will become the food of the millions. The New York 

 market receives probably less than ten thousand pounds of them annually, and they are nowhere 

 very numerous. Yet hundreds of bodies of waste water are now stocked with them in sufficient 

 numbers to afford pleasant sport and considerable quantities of excellent food. 



135. THE SUN FISHES AND THEIR ALLIES. 



By David S. Jordan. 



The Rock Bass — Ambloplites bupesteis Gill. 



This species is known by the names of " Rock Bass," " Goggle-eye," and " Red-eye." All these 

 names are in general use; the first most common in the Lake region, the last farther south. It is 

 everywhere abundant in lakes, ponds, and larger streams throughout the Great Lake region and 

 the Mississippi Valley. It prefers clear waters, and is not often found in muddy bayous. It is a 

 hardy and gamy fish, and takes the hook readily. It is a good pan-fish, but not large, its weight 

 seldom exceeding one and a half pounds. Like other "Sun-fishes," it spawns in early summer. 



' Forest and Stream, i, p. 410. 



^Forest and Stream, ii, p. 341. 



^The Black Bass of the Potomac. — The Cumberland Daily News claims for Mr. W. W. Shriver, of Wheeling, 

 "West Virginia, the credit of originating and executing the plan of transferring the Black Bass, now so abundant in 

 our waters, from the Ohio to the Potomac. The Daily News is no doubt correct. The performance was one to be 

 proud of, and proper credit should be given to the right man. It has been well said that he is a public benefactor 

 who "makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before." How much more is he a public benefactor who 

 fills a river with food-fishes where there were none before. A letter from Mr. Shriver, written in 1860, is republished 

 in support of the claim for him in this matter, in which he says: 



"The enterprise or experiment was contemplated by me long before the completion of the Baltimore and 

 Ohio Railroad to the Ohio River at Wheeling, but no satisfactory mode of transportation presented itself until the 

 completion of that great work (in, I believe, the year 1853), and in the following year I made my first trip, although 

 I made several afterwards in the same year, carrying with me my first lot of fish, in a large tin bucket, perforated, 

 and which I had made to fit the opening in the water tank attached to the locomotive, which was supplied with 

 fresh water at the regular water stations along the line of the road, and thereby succeeded well in keeping the fish 

 (which were young and small, having been selected for the purpose) alive, fresh, and sound." 



Mr, Shriver made several other similar excursions, and on each occasion put the young fish into the basin of the 

 Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, at Cumberland, Maryland, where they had free egress and ingress into the Potomac 

 Eiver and its tributaries. The stock originally transferred, some seventeen years ago, has increased prodigiously, 

 and to-day they abound in the Potomac and all its tributaries. They are of good size, frequently being caught to 

 Aveigh as much as from three to four and a half or five pounds. — liaUimore Sun, April 28, 1871. 



