FOREST AMD STREAM, 
[NoY. 13, 1897. 
The Board of Park Commissioners teing a changeable 
body, dependent on an elected Major, is not the proper cus- 
todian of as delicate and intricate a scientific thing as a 
public aquarium. It should be placed under a board of 
trustees which will not be subject to political changes. 
Such boards govern the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory, in Central Park, New Yort city; the Zoological and 
Botanical, gardens; and the Aquarium calls for more care- 
ful selection in its trustees than any other public institution, 
because fishes are more difiicult to keep alive than any other 
form of life. 
flO BE CONTENTJED.] 
ANGLING NOTES. 
Mash-klnoee. 
My compliments to Dr. Robert T. Morris, whose article in 
regard to the spelling of the name of the big pike 1 have 
read in Forest aot) Stbeam of Oct. 30. While 1 have ad- 
hered to spelling the name mascalonge, I have never con- 
tended that it was the correct way to spell it. My contention 
is and has been, that it should be spelled in one way, and 
not in half a dozen ways, I was very willing to adopt any 
spelling that seemed to" be by authority, and t think it was 
natural to look to the United States Pish Commission for 
that authority. The matier was submitted to Dr. Bean, who 
then operated the spelling factory of the Commission (the 
question was put by a New York newspaper, the particular 
copy of which I could find, perhaps, by searching for it), and 
he gave out the spelling I have since used. In fact, I have 
talked -with him about the spelling of the name witbin the 
past year, and he had then found no reason for cbangicg his 
mind in regard to it. Really, [ have been more consistent 
about the spelling of the name - of the fish in question than 
my authority, the U, S. Pish Commission, for ihe publica- 
tions of the'Commitsion do not use that spelling now, I tind 
upon looking. In one place it is muskellunge, but Ihc late 
Prof. Goode is responsible for that. It is like a certain State 
Fish Commission which "resolved, that hereafter the fish 
commonly called lake trout and salmon trout, shall hereafter 
be called lake trout only"; and thereafter, in the same report 
containing the resolution, the fish was called salmon trout. 
I am not hide-bound, and am willing to recede from my 
declaration to spell the word mascalonge forevermore, if a 
congress of fishermen or some other body will authorize 
some other spelling, and stick to it; so we can have one uni- 
versal form of the word, and not half a dozen, as we have 
had and now have. I do not recall that L have seen the 
spelling advocated by Dr. Morris, although maskinonje has 
been said by some to be the correct form, and I am of the 
opinion that the introduction of the h, and the omission 
of the second n, makes an entirely new form of the word. 
However that may be, if Dr. Morris will have his spelling 
legally adopted, as I have suggested, I will get in line. 
As to ouananiche, I must leave that to my friend Cham- 
bers, as he is the godfather and mother of that spelling. 
His paper, "Philology of the Ouananicbe. A Plea for the 
Recognition of Priority of Nomenclature," read before the 
Royal Society of Canada, treats of the spelling of the name 
quite exhaustively, and I would like Dr. Morris to read it. 
By the way, in that very paper the author says: "In the 
case of another North American fish, Esax nohilior." (My 
dear Chambers, are you aware that the fish sharps have 
changed both the generic and specific names of this pike. 
They may have done this when you were not lookiag, but 
the name on the door-plate now reads : Lucius masquinongy, 
and this is where old Mr. Priority comes in. By the way, 
for the second time, Jordan gives the common names mus- 
kallunge, maskinongy, muscalonge.) "whose popular title 
in its original form, like that of the ouananiche and namay- 
cush, comes down to us from its Indian nomenclature, an 
apparent desire to get away from French orthography has 
produced a somewhat similar confusion of language to that 
already described in the case of the ouananiche. The orig- 
inal spelling of the Indian name was undoubtedly maski- 
nonge, and such it is still called in the statutes of Canada. 
According to Mgr. Lafliche, maskinonge is derived from 
mas/i, detormed, and kinonge, a pike, and was applied to 
the E. ndbilior by the Indians because it appeared to them 
a deformed or different kmd of pike from that to which 
they had been accustomed." 
You will readily see that here is another doctor in the 
case, and I leave it to you if, under the circumstances, it 
was not discretion on my part as a layman to adopt the 
spelling I believed was given by authority, and stick to it. 
1 had either to do this or take to the brush. 
The Pikes. 
It is my opinioH that the pikes have caused more confu- 
sion than any other family of fishes, not alone in the spelling 
of the name of one of them, as may be gleaned from what I 
have written above, but in various ways, the chief of which 
is perhaps the application of the name pir-kerel. The fish 
that was Eiox Indus and is now Luctm lucivs, is almost uni- 
versally called pickerel, when really it is the pike, the same 
pike that English anglers regard highly as a game fish. 1 
have just been on the witness stand in the Supreme Court in 
this State, where the principal question at issue was the 
dentity of members of the pike family. The people had 
brought suit against a man for catching pickerel idegally in 
the closed season and by a device forbidden by law. Wit- 
nesses, several of them, testified that the fi,h caught were 
mascalonge and the defendant got the verdict. The case 
was appealed to the Supreme Court and 1 went out there to 
find what kind of fish the pond contained before the trial 
came off, for the Court would not permit the State to amend 
its complaint to include the word mascalonge, for it was just 
as illegal to catch mascalonge as it was to catch pickerel. As 
a matter of fact I found that some people really called the 
fish mascalonge, and not for court purposes, for they were 
not mascalonge. When the trial came off 1 arrived by train 
when the case was well under way, and going to the court 
room listened to one or two witnesses for the people, and to 
my astonishment they termed the fish pickerel or mascalonge, 
as if they were interchangeable terms. The people had 
provided some fish to test the knowledge of the witnesses, 
but I did not see them until I went on the stand, as I pre- 
ferred not to. All that I could tell about the case from 
where I sat was that the witnesses one after another swore 
that they "never h d seen a fish like the big one " When I 
went on the stand I found that the people had provided a 
mascalonge, a true pike(iyMmis hicius), and a pickerel (i-Mcms 
reiieulatus), and the big dsn, which none of the witnesses had 
ever seen before that day, was the mascalonge. The fish 
which the defendant had caught in a, trap were identified as 
being like the one that I testified was a pike, commonly 
called pickerel. 
It seemed from a small part of the testimony which I 
heard on cross-examination, that the defense intended to rest 
its claim that the fish were mascalonge upon the fact that 
they grew to great size. One question was: "Do you re- 
member hearing about a fish taken from this pond that was 
6ift. long." To the credit of the witness he promptly 
answered. No. 
It is surprising to find how many people believe that a 
mascalonge is nothing more than a pike of great size. In 
other words, they have an idea that a pike grows in time into 
a mascalonge, as in England a jack grows into a pike. On 
the other hand, in this State the fish generally called the 
pike, called so too by people who should know better, and 
probably do know better, is not the pike at all, and does not 
belong to that family, but is the pike-peich or wall-eyed 
pike. 
Reforms in fish nomenclature are like other reforms of 
slow growth, and I imagine nothing short of a convulsion of 
nature will ever bring about a change in this respect. 
If every time a man should say pickerel when he ought to 
say pike to be correct, or pike when the fish he means is the 
pike-perch, the earth would open and swallow him, those 
that escape might in time, if they said anything, use the 
right term to designate the fish they are talking about. 
Ase of Trout. 
A few days ago a correspondent asked me how long trout 
lived. I replied that brook trout lived about fifteen years on 
an average in confinement, and that we knew little or noth- 
ing of how long wild trout lived. The letter was sealed on 
my desk ready to go to the post with other mail, when I took 
up an English paper, and almost the first thing that met my 
eye was ' Longevity of Trout." Under this head 1 read of a 
trout placed in a well by a man who had been dead thirty 
years at the time the item was written, and no one knew how 
long before his death the trout was placed in the well, nor 
how old the trout was when so placed. I did not open the 
letter to make any corrections, but if my correspondent 
should happen to read the same item he may think he came 
to a poor shop for information. However, it is of record 
that a brown trout once lived fifty-three years, according to 
Dr. Day, and another twenty-tight years, and 1 knew this 
when I wrote what I did. Dr. Day was of the opinion that 
in such exceptional cases where trout had lived to great age 
that they were sterile fish. In nearly all recorded cases of 
great age in trout the fish have been confined in wells and 
their growth has been very slight. In fact, I recall one case 
where the fish was of the same size after many years' con- 
finement, the exact number of years I do not recall and it is 
not worth looking up. 
One American fish breeder fixes the average age of brook 
trout in confinement at twelve years. A Scotch fish breeder 
places the age of the /ant? at about fourteen years. Stone, 
one of the pioneers in this country, says it is more than 
twelve years, but he does not fix the limit. In Scotland the 
fishculturist thinks fish should not be handled to get the best 
results until they are four years old. In this country trout 
are used for artificial breeding when they are two years old. 
I know of one jjiivate establishment where nothing but two- 
year-old fish are used as breeders, but they are larger at 
two years than many fish in other regions are at three years. 
When trout reach the age of eight or ten years they cease 
to be prolific breeders, and so I will stick to what I said iu 
my letter to my correspondent in spite of the fifty three, 
twenty-eight and other year old trouL Size alone aoes not 
indicate the age of a trout, for food or the absence of it will 
make a trout large or small, and over and over I have 
written to inquirers that I could not tell the age of a trout 
by its size. Trout from the same lot of eggs grow unevenly 
and have to be sorted from time to time, and the large ones 
removed from the pond containing their smaller brethren or 
the smaller ones will be missed at roll call, as they go to in- 
crease the size of the larger and more active trout without 
regard to family ties or relationship. 
Size of Trout. 
The foregoing has reminded me of the size of lake trout 
that have been taken the past season in some waters. Un- 
fortunately, the law in New York reads: "Trout of any kind, 
salmon trout or landlocked salmon, less than 6in. in length, 
shall not be intentionally taken or possessed," etc 
That is all right enough for "trout of any kind," which 
means common brook trout, rainbow trout and brown trout, 
but it is all wrong for lake trout and landlocked salmon. 
The Commissioners of Fisheries, Game and Forests wished 
to have this hmit changed, but as yet have not succeeded in 
getting the law-making body to change it, although the sec- 
tion is actually undoing their work of re-stockmg the waters 
with lake trout and landlocked salmon. Lake trout, to be 
on a footing with brook trout, should not be taken until 
they are at kast three years old (four years would be far 
better), and at mat age they will average about ISJin. in 
length. Larger three-year- old fish have been reared, but 1 
am writing of the average, and i think what 1 have said is 
fair. What is true of lake trout is true of landlocked sal- 
mon, and both should be put in the same class with salmon 
under Sec. 114, which limits the length at which they may 
he legally killed to 18in. 
The Commissioners are stocking our lake in this State with 
lake trout, and the people living on the shores of the lake are 
catching the baby trout when ibey are in weight from J to 
fib. This is a sheer waste of food, when in a few years 
these fish would weigh from 5 to lOlbs. each. Several letters 
of complaint, as well as complaints by word of mouth, have 
come to me about this sort or fishing, one says that one man 
in one day caught 1^7 of these baby trout. He might almost 
as well have gone to the hatchery and caught the trout out 
of one of the rearing boxes. 
A lot of yearling trout were planted in this lake, and it is 
not impossible that the 127 baby fish were some of the lot. 
The State had reared those fish until they were fourteen 
months old, had bought food for them during the time and 
paid men to feed and care for them every day during that 
period. Then the Commission had sent the Slate cars with 
attendants to transport the fish 200 or 300 miles and plant 
them in the lake. Then a little later, in one day a man 
catches what it would cost, if the railroads did not" haul the 
State fish car free, $25, say, to transport, to makr no note of 
the mtLi'a wages and the cost of food to rear the fish. Of 
course, it was legal to catch the baby fish, but a man who 
would do such a thing must have a precious poor opinion of 
himself if he ever slops to think about it. Tnere is onfe 
thing he and otheis engaged in this business must do: about 
next year they should make an application to the Commis- 
sion lor more trout and complain tliat the fishing is falling 
off, and be particular to ask for yearlings and say that it 
does not do any gond to plant fry because the yellow perch 
eat them as soon as they are put in the water. 
Ask for at least 20,000 yearlings, say three carloads, for the 
Commissioners will be disappointed "if you ask for a less 
number. If you don't get what you ask for, make a kick, 
for it is the regular thing to do after you have practiced a 
style of fishing that would shame a graven image, and ex- 
hausted the fishing, to demand the impossible in the way of 
restocking the waters that you have depleted by your own 
selfish acts. To any one to whom it may appear that I am 
writing about an imaginary condition of things, let me say 
that it is no joke, and that 1 have simply skirmished around 
the edge of the truth instead of plunging boldly into the 
thick of it, for I must confess that it is not apleasant subject 
for me to write about. 
Black Bass. 
Twice at least within a very short time I have noticed that 
black bass, small mouthed, were a drug in our local markets. 
One market man told me the fish came from Buffalo, and 
another that they came from New York. One day the bass 
were offered at less than the wholesale price in New York 
that week, viz., 8 cents per pound. In the absence of proof 
to the contrary, we must assume that the black bass were 
caught legally, although of course they were caught in nets, 
somewhere. ISfetting is permitted m some waters, with an 
especial provision that all black bass taken must be returned 
to the water alive. Perhaps this provision is always ob- 
served, but I doubt it. Going up and down the Hudson 
River, I have often wondered if the fyke nets take any great 
number of black bass. I saw twenty-two of such nets in 
about the distance of the length of the train I was on. some 
of them with long leaders, like a pound net. The Hudson 
is not considered a black bass stream from the angler's stand- 
point, but there are many black bass in the river, and some 
are caught with houk and line. It has been reported 
to me along the river that few, comparatively, black 
ba.?s are taken in these nets, but one fisherman told me 
that the fykes never took any salmon, and before I finished 
talking with him he admitted that three salmon had been 
taken in such nets, but none in his. On the other hand, a 
member of the Board of Education in Albany made an in- 
vestigation two or three years ago and found salmon in sev- 
eral fyke nets, something like a dozen fish, as 1 now recall 
the number, found in one trip over a portion of the river. 
But this note is not about salmon. Admitting that all the 
black bass which find their way to market are taken legally 
as to season and method, would they not be worth more in 
the water for hook and line fishermen than they are when 
taken by nets and sold for 8 or 10 cents per pound — 10 cents 
being the highest wholesale price I have noticed in New 
York markets this fall? If they are worth more in the 
water, how can a change of method in their capture be 
brought about to make them solely a hook and line fish in- 
stead of a net fish? To be sure, the present law puri^orts to 
make them a hook and line fish within the State, but it is 
certain that black bass came from somewhere after being 
being taken in nets. In 1894 the interior waters of New 
York furnished 55.8061bs. of black bass, valued at $6,230, 
and in 1895 4o,9991bs. valued at $5,078. The black bass 
cannot be hatched artificially like the trout, shad, pike- 
perch and whitefish, and there' can be no question about this 
fish becoming scarce in all waters in the State, in spite of 
such restrictive laws as we have. Last year the Fisheries, 
Game and Forest Commission distributed no small-mouth 
black bass. * Every year the applications for black bass out- 
number those of the year before, so that the demand increases 
while the supply decreases. To any one who has said to him- 
self that the netted fish I have mentioned above came from 
the Great Lakes, where the State has no jurisdiction, let me 
say that in one year 1,000.000 black bass were asked for of 
the Commission, to be planted in Lake Ontario. This is a 
condition of affairs that the State Commission is powerless 
to remedy. The first great evil is that the present law does 
not cover the breeding season of the black bass, but under 
the present condition of things it would appear necessary to 
do more than extend the close season to cover the spawning 
period, to restore the blacfe bass fishing in waters where it 
has fallen ofl' to almost nothing, The remedy I would sug- 
gest for consideration in addition to an extended close season, 
is te make the St Lawrence River law as to the number of 
black bass which can be caught m one day, apply to all the 
waters of the State, and amend Sec. 109 of the game law to 
read: "Trout of any kind, salmon trout, landlocked salmon, 
or black bass caught in any of the inland waters of this 
State, shall not be transported to any point within or without 
the State, from or through any counties thereof, or possessed 
for that purpose, except when accompanied by the owner." 
There is one thing sure, the fishermen themselves have got 
to do a little thinking, and then act in concert, if the black 
bass, which has been called "the people's game fish," is to be 
saved for future fishing in this State. 
Nature never intended the black bass for small waters, but 
man has tried to improve on nature in providing a habitat 
for this fish; and it is a failure except when unusual safe- 
guards are thrown around it to compensate for changed con- 
ditioas. 
Salmon by Millions. 
Through the kindness of Mr. Livingston Stone, who is 
now the oldest living fishculturist in this country, I am 
able to give a few figures showing what was done at a single 
hatching station in California last year. At Battle Creek, in 
Shahta county, 4,968 female salmon were stripped, and pro- 
duced the enormuus number of 25,852,880 eggs, or some- 
thing over 5,200 eggs per fish. 
In writing of Mr. Stone, I am reminded of his hatchery 
at Cold Spring trout ponds, near Charleslown, N. H., 
which he established in 1866. Four years later I made a 
pilgrimage to Cnarlestowu, where some of my forebears 
lived and died long ago, and visited the hatchery. The next 
year I went into a hatchery to learn the business of practical 
fish propagation by artificial methods. There is no doubt in 
my own mind that my visit to Mr. Stone's trout breeding 
ponds had a decided influence on my after life. I 
left home at that time with no intention of going to 
Charlestown, but chiefly to visit a younger brother 
in college, and the visit to the ponds and the 
town ana its graveyard was an afterthought. Trifles light 
as air sometimes changes the whole current of our thoughts 
and create new desires and ambitions. As a boy I had an 
artificial trout pond and 1 stocked it by catching trout with 
hook and line and conveying them to the pond alive. Cold 
spring ponds opened a new book to me which I have been 
reading ever since, and have got perhaps as far as the mid- 
dle of the book. To be perfectly candid, I once thought I 
had read it to the end hut I was mistaken, for I must have 
