448 
BULLETIN OF THE UNITED STATES FISH COMMISSION. 
perch is about as good a fish as he had ever eaten. Anyone who is in the habit of going to Saratoga 
Lake knows Mr. C. B. Moon, of the Saratoga Lake House, the reputation of whose game and fish 
dinners is world-wide, and no one who is acquainted with Mr. Moon can have a shadow of a doubt 
that he is an unimpeachable judge of the qualities of game and fish. I wrote to Mr. Moon for the 
purpose of getting his opinion on the merits of the yellow perch, and he sent me the following reply : 
“Your letter is arrived making inquiries in regard to the yellow perch. I use a large quantity 
of these fish every season. I consider them a most excellent fish indeed. Many of my customers at 
the lake give them the preference above all other fresh-water fish on account of their sweetness and 
flavor. They increase rapidly when introduced into good waters, and I am sure they would be a 
hardy fish to ship, and any section of the country might wel 1 feel glad to have them introduced.” 
Now as to the actual 'charges against the yellow perch, that they are “bony and predaceous.” 
I say, What of that? The shad is very bony, but a capital fish nevertheless. The brook trout is more 
predaceous than the perch, but he is the king of fresh-water fish nevertheless. Saying that the perch 
is bony and predaceous does not make out a case against him. The question is whether these disadvan- 
tages affect his good qualities. I think very decidedly that they do not. I reaffirm that the yellow 
perch of northern aud northeastern waters is a very sweet and excellent fish when in good condition, 
and people must call them worse names than bony and predaceous before they can put them down. 
Besides possessing edible qualities of an excellent character, the yellow perch has other merits. 
It is a hardy fish and can probably be introduced successfully where other fish would fail. It is very 
prolific also. Not but that other fish are equally so, but the eggs of the yellow perch will hatch 
under circumstances that would be fatal to other eggs, so that the perch is in consequence practically 
more prolific than other fish. It is also exceedingly easy to hatch the spawn of yellow perch 
artificially, which is another advantage. 
If this is not a sufficient vindication of the attempt (which, by the way, I would have it 
understood, had the full sanction of the California fish commission) to introduce the yellow perch 
into the waters of the Pacific Slope, let me add that it is at all events far preferable to most of the 
fish at present existing in the fresh waters of California, and even if it destroyed four-fifths of the 
other fish there it would replace them by abetter kind. 
For instance, the fish of Clear Lake are (I give the local names, for I do not yet know the 
scientific names) the California salmon trout, white perch, shapaulle, hitch, suckers, chy, roach, 
spotted sunfish, mudfish (mud suckers), blackfish, trout, bullheads, viviparous perch. The fish of 
the Sacramento River are trout, salmon, chubs, perch, hardheads, Sacramento pike, viviparous perch, 
split-tails, suckers, herrings, sturgeon, crabs, lamprey eels. The varieties of these two localities 
comprise most of the fresh- water fishes of northern and central California, and I think it safe to say, 
with the exception of the salmon, trout, and possibly the viviparous perch and blackfish, which 
latter is quite rare, that there is not one of these fish that is superior to the yellow perch of New 
England and northern New York, which it was proposed to take to California. 
THE WALL-EYED PIKE OR PIKE PERCH. 
In 1874 Mr. Livingston Stone transported sixteen full-grown wall-eyed pike or 
“glass-eyed perch” ( Stizostedion vitreum) from the Missisquoi River, Vermont, to 
California, where they were deposited June 12 in the Sacramento River opposite 
Sacramento City. There has been no report of the survival, capture, or multiplication 
of these fish, with the exception of the taking of a single specimen in a slough of the 
Sacramento River, mentioned in the fish commissioners’ report for 1874-75. 
The California fish commission has been desirous of securing a large consign- 
ment of wall-eyed pike from the United States Fish Commission for introduction into 
certain lakes and ponds of the State, and a shipment will probably soon be made 
from Lake Erie. This is one of the best food-fishes of the Great Lakes, and would 
doubtless readily become acclimatized in some of the shallower and warmer waters of 
California. In the Great Lakes, it is most abundant and important in Lake Erie, the 
shoalest and warmest member of the system. Its maximum weight is fully 30 pounds, 
but the average of those taken in the Great Lakes is from 5 to 10 pounds. 
