294 REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



triumphs and joys at the foot of some mill dam with these same despised but 

 useful little chubs, dace and shiners, and some of them still serve him as bait. 



Other fish food for the smaller fish found in the Adirondacks are insect 

 larvae — of mosquitoes, "black flies," gnats, midges and "punkies." The larva 

 of the helgramite fly is a famous bait for the black bass. The common crayfish 

 and the little "fresh water shrimp" are excellent fish food, especially the latter, 

 which forms an important part of the food of the trout family. 



The life of the fishes is in constant peril from natural enemies. The aquatic 

 birds — loons, herons, fish eating ducks, kingfishers, fishhawks, and others — wage 

 constant warfare upon them. The otters and minks unrelentingly pursue and 

 destroy them. The fishes themselves are cannibals, devouring their own unborn 

 babies in the egg and the helpless infants of their families, and by instinct the 

 stronger devour the weaker. The savagery hidden under the calm surface of the 

 waters parallels that upon the land among human savages. Nature, to meet 

 those destructive agencies, has given to the fishes marvelous reproductivity, and 

 the races and families, genera and species survive and flourish, holding an equilib- 

 rium of existence practically undisturbed — until man comes with new modes of 

 destruction. Then Nature is defeated in her wisely adjusted plan. The equilibrium 

 is broken up. 



Just here is where the wisdom of the law comes in to check the indiscrimi- 

 nately destructive work of man, and to help restore the fast failing powers of 

 the hard pressed hosts of the fish kingdom to their true place and rank in the 

 economy of nature. 



So, it is one of the most important departments of the work of the Forest, 

 Fish and Game Commission so to administer the laws of the State and aid the laws 

 of nature as to return to nature what the thoughtless greed of man and his 

 unwise use of nature's gifts have rudely taken from her. 



