A PACK-TRAIN OF HORSES LADEN WITH CANS OF YOUNG TROUT FOR PLANTING IN A 



COLORADO LAKE) 



The jolting of the cans is of advantage to the fish, as it serves to aerate the water 



"strange and handsomely colored fish." 

 He sent a specimen to the United States 

 Fish Commission, of which the present 

 Bureau of Fisheries is the direct de- 

 scendant, and ichthyologists in that es- 

 tablishment discovered it to be new to 

 science and named it Lopholatilus cha- 

 mceleonticeps. A less worthy fish might 

 never have been able to attain popularity 

 under such a handicap name, which, be- 

 ing interpreted, means simply the tufted 

 chameleon-headed tilus. A short name, 

 adapted for common use, was obviously 

 needed, so the sponsors for the new spe- 

 cies perpetrated a pun on a syllable of its 

 generic name and called it "tile" fish. 



The Commissioner of Fisheries at that 

 time, Prof. Spencer F. Baird, at once be- 

 gan investigations to determine the loca- 

 tion and extent of the grounds on which 

 the tilefish occurred, the abundance of 

 the fish, and the possibility of establish- 

 ing a commercial fishery. 



In less than three years, however, and 

 before the plans of the Commissioner 

 were completed, the tilefish met with a 

 cataclysm which resulted in its apparent 

 extermination. News of the disaster was 

 brought in by the master of a ship in 

 March, 1882, who reported that he had 

 sailed for 69 miles through dead and dy- 

 ing tilefish that thickly covered the sur- 

 face of! the middle Atlantic coast. 



Various other reports to the same ef- 

 fect were received in March and April, 

 and it was computed that an area 170 

 miles long and 25 miles wide was covered 

 with dead fish, whose number was esti- 

 mated at 1,400,000,000. No such catas- 

 trophe had ever befallen any other fish 

 in the history of the world and specula- 

 tion as to its cause was rife. 



The Bureau, through its investigations 

 before and after the event, was able to 

 offer an explanation which has been gen- 

 erally accepted. The tilefish, while a bot- 



57i 



