102 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



dispose of the food supply of a pond as the black bass. One of the best foods for black 

 bass, and one easily supplied and a rapid breeder, is the crayfish, or crawfish. Lake 

 George, thirty-six miles long, has always had black bass so long as man can remem- 

 ber, and they probably came in from the great lakes through the St. Lawrence River 

 and Lake Champlain. The largest bass ever taken from this lake weighed six and one- 

 half pounds until crayfish were planted in the lake by the State as bass food ; and 

 when the crayfish were well established the maximum weight of the bass went up to 

 seven and one-half pounds. The crayfish are now very abundant in the lake and it is 

 the one form of food the bass seem unable to exterminate. 



It is claimed by scientists that we have some thirty-eight species of crayfish in this 

 country, one genera with six species being found only on the Pacific Slope. No cray- 

 fish have been found in the New England States except in Western Vermont and 

 Massachusetts, and in Central Maine. There are three species common in this State 

 and their breeding and shedding habits are similar to those of the lobster. In fact, the 

 crayfish is frequently called the fresh water lobster. The three species have been 

 called "plant loving, stone haunting, and mud frequenting species." It is the "river, or 

 stone haunting" species, Cambarus affinis, that we are chiefly interested in and the one 

 illustrated in this paper. The crayfish are scavengers, but they are omniverous 

 animals and young fish, cyprinoids, that fall into their claws are doomed. Crayfish are 

 found under stones in brooks and along the shores of a pond or lake, and there is 

 generally a small pile of fresh sand near the edge of the stone which shelters them. In 

 the spring months the female is found carrying her eggs attached to the swimmerets 

 under her tail. 



In Bohemia the crayfish is cultivated artificially, but the object of this paper is 

 not to deal so much with the cultivation of fish food artificially, as it is with the trans- 

 planting of fish food naturally cultivated from waters that are fertile to waters that are 

 barren, where it can reproduce itself. This is something that every one interested 

 in fish planting or in angling can take part in. To transplant crayfish they should be 

 placed in vessels containing water, sand, gravel and small stones. If crowded in a can 

 or if no material is provided in which to burrow and hide, they will maim and kill one 

 another. 



Many lakes have been planted with so-called land-locked salmon, which is the 

 ouananiche of Canada, and have never been heard of after; but where they have been 

 planted with the smelt or the round whitefish, which is the "frost fish" of the Adiron- 

 dack's, they have remained. If the food of the ouananiche will thrive in any water, 

 the ouananiche will thrive; and the proper way to test the matter of planting ouananiche 

 is to plant the food. 



