FISHES AND FISHING IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 291 



benefits of such a condition have sustained the Board in its recognition of the 

 simple fact that, after all, it does not best serve the State or the people of the State 

 to make all the Preserve "wild forest lands." 



And this leads to the further thought and questioning whether or not some 

 carefully restricted and fairly exercised power should not be given to the 

 Commission, in some future amendment to the Constitution — a power, possibly, 

 to be exercised through an application to the higher courts — for the leasing, for 

 moderate periods, of points of land upon some of the lakes, for hotel purposes 

 or cottages, or both. This would be but an extension of the present policy 

 which permits owners of private lands to retain their hotels and cottages in 

 seeming violation of the intent of the Constitution to reduce the entire Preserve 

 to "wild forest lands" — an intent which, if strictly carried out, would make it a 

 "wilderness" indeed to three-fourths of the people who now enjoy its benefits. 



It might be supposed that one who ventures to pose as a "sportsman" and 

 to give his "view" of fish, would have some expert and scientific knowlenge of 

 icthyology in general and of Adirondack fishes in particular, but he confesses 

 that he is one of those who go to the woods and waters principally to rest 

 and enjoy and not so much to learn; that he loves the trout fisherman-wise and 

 gastronomically, and to this day calls him Salmo fontinalis although he reads 

 that he ought to say Salmo salvelinus; and although in his boyhood days he 

 wrestled with Cicero's native tongue, he prefers plain "brook trout" to either. 

 Yet he knows he is wrong and ought to be scientific in his nomenclature if he 

 would be understood outside of his own bailiwick. 



He attempts, however, although conscious of his deficiencies, but borrowing ' 

 from others who know, to give some facts about Adirondack fish in general for 

 the possible benefit of some reader who is not already familiar with them. He 

 is amazed at the outset to see how even scientific authorities differ in their 

 scientific nomenclature of fishes, while the varieties of the common names of the 

 same fishes in different localities are utterly confounding. It will be better 

 to steer clear of difficulties by giving only a few names of well-known fishes 

 than to plunge into the deep waters of a critical essay on the subject. 



Fred Mather, that genial gentleman and wise sportsman who wrote fascinating 

 books on fishing, at the request of Verplanck Colvin, Superintendent of the New 

 York State Adirondack Land Survey, in 1882, made a serious and protracted 

 attempt by actual investigation to learn all about and describe scientifically the 

 fishes inhabiting the Adirondack waters, and made a very full and clear report, 

 published in Colvin's Report in 1891. Careful use here is made of Mather's 

 article and of some later authorities. 



