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Canadian Instituta for Historical Microroproductions / institut Canadian da microroproductiont historiquas
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Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes techniques et bibllographiques
The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be blbHographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming are checked below.
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Coloured covers / Couverture de couleur
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Cover title missing / Le titre de couverture manque
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Encre de couleur (I.e. autre que bleue ou noire)
Coloured plates and/or illustrations / Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur
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Bound with other material / Reli^ avec d'autres documents
Only edition available / Seule Edition disponible
Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion along interior margin / La reliure serr^e peut causer de I'ombre ou de la distorsion le long de la marge int^rieure.
Blank leaves added during restorations may appear within the text. Whenever possible, these have been omitted from filming / II se peut que certaines pages blanches ajout^es lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, mais, lorsque cela ^tait possible, ces pages n'ont pas 616 film^es.
Additional comments / Commentaires suppl^mentaires:
L'lnstitut a microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a 6\6 possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exem- plaire qui son! peut'dtre uniques du point de vue bibll- ographique. qui peuvent nrxxlifier une image reproduHe. ou qui peuvent exiger une modifk»tion dans la mitho- de nonnale de filmage sont indk]u6s ci-dessous.
I I Coloured pages / Pages de couleur
I I Pages damaged / Pages endommag6es
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Pages restored and/or laminated / Pages restaurtes et/ou pellicul^es
r~~k Pages discoloured, stained or foxed / L^ Pages dteolor^es. tachetdes ou piqudes
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l/l Showthrough/ Transparence
I I Quality of print varies /
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Ouaiitd indgale de I'impression
Includes supplementary material / Comprend du materiel suppl^mentaire
Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata slips, tissues, etc.. have been refilmed to ensure the best possible image / Les pages totalement ou partiellement obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc.. ont 6\6 filmdes k nouveau de fa^on k obtenir la meilleure image possible.
Opposing pages with varying colouration or discolourations are filmed twice to ensure the best possible image / Les pages s'opposant ayant des colorations variables ou des decolorations sont filmdes deux fois afin d'obtenir la meilleure image possible.
h\s item it filmed at the reduction ratio checlced below /
e document cat U\mi au taux de reduction indiqui ci-dct*out.
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iM copy «lm«d hf tMt b««« raproduMd thanks 0 th« 0«n«re«itv of:
National Ubrary of Canada
L'axMnplaira fUm* fut raproduit grica A la O*n«rosit* da:
Bibllothiqua nationala du Canada
rha imagaa appaaring hara ara tha baat quality loaaibia censMaring tha condition and lagibility >f tha originai copy and in kaaping with tha liming aantraet apacificationa.
Original capias in printod papar covara ara fllmad ••ginning with tho front covor and onding on hm last paga with a printad or illuatratad impraa> lion, or tha bach covar whan appropriata. All ithar original copiaa ara filmad bagmning on tha lr»t paga with a printad or illuatratad ••"P'f*- tion. and anding on tha laat paga writh a printad >r illuatratad impraaaion.
rha laat racordad frama on aach •"'«'°*''jj! ihall contain tha lymbol — » '"»••"'"> ''S°.; HNUEO"!. or tha symbol ▼ Cmaaning 6ND I. whichavar appliaa.
Maps, platas. charts, ate. may ba fllmad at riiffarant raduction ratios. Thosa too l«'8« « »• intiraly includad in ona axpoaura ara fllmad iMginning in tha uppar laft hand cornor. laft to right and top to bonom. as many framas as raguirad. Tha following diagrams illustrata tha mathod:
Las imagas suivantaa ont *t* rapreduitas avac la plus grand soin. eompto tanu da la condition at da la nanatO da Taaamplaira filmi, at an eonf ermit* avac laa eonditiona du eontrat da fUmaga.
Laa oaamplalraa originaux dont la eouvartura an papiar aat Imprintaa sont filmas an eemmancant par la pramiar plat at an tarminant soit par la darnlAra paga qui comporta una amprainta d'impraaalon ou d'illuatration. soit par la sacond plat, salon la eaa. Toua laa autras aaamplairas originaua sont filmda an commancant par la pramiara paga qui comporta una amprainta d'impraaaion ou d'illuatration at wt tarminant par la dami*ra paga qui comporta una taila amprainta.
Un daa symbolaa auivants apparaltra sur la damiAra imaga da chaqua microfiche, talon la cas: la symbda -^^ signifia "A SUIVRE". la symbola ▼ signifia "UN".
Las cartaa. planchas. tablaaux. ate. pauvant itra filmto * daa taux da rMuctien diffirants. Lorsqua la document aat trap grand pour *tra raproduit an un saul clicha. il ast film* a partir da I'angia supOriaur gaucha. da gaucha a droito. at da haut an baa. an pranant la nombra d'imagaa nOcassaira. Laa diagrammas suivants illustrant la mOthoda.
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MKiocorr motunoN tbt cmait
(ANSI ond ISO TfST CHAUT No. 2)
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/APPLIED IIVMGE I
1653 Eoit Uorn StrMt HochMUr, Naw 'ork 1*609 USA (7t6) ♦a? - 0300 - PhonT^ ^ (716) 2U- 5989 - Fgi
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PPENDEP EEPOBTS.
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PROFESSOR E. E. PRINCE
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X KtA^nifO TbiJNO IV7: Its OOMPARATIVS ADtrANTAaiS. ,«^> \ AQQUMATIZAnON OF nOB, n»H-WATKB AKD 1UBIN1. " *
I 9il
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1900
*«^>.-'<''^
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aoVlANMKH'^ PBIlTTINa BUBIAU
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SPECIAL
APPENDED KEPOKTS
IT
PROl ESSOR E. E. PRINCE
DomxHion Commi»ium»r of FUheries
1. PLANTINIJ YOUN(} FRY : ITS COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES.
2. THE VERNACULAR NAMES OF FISHES.
3. ACCLIMATIZATION OF FISH, FRESH WATER AND MARINE.
1900
OTTAWA
GOVERNMENT PRINTING BUREAU
1901
.i^^-*^
fi0d24727
SPECIAL REPORTS
CONTENTS
I.— FUatlBf TooBff Frjr.
TAOM.
Agr wh«n fry arc (lUnlMl in f 'mumU 9
AivuiiH-iiU KfTitiiwt iilkiitiiig yiHinn fry 9
M infaviMirof m 10,11
Baa*, aiir »( ymiiiv lilark 9
Brailc tniut iiiitr »f yiiuiiK. 9
Ifciww, Mr, HeyiiHMir, qiM»t«l 11
Bucklanil. Kntiik, (|iH>tMl M, U
CannilMraiii »iiiiiiik fry 9
Coat (i( itUntiiiK niimll (rv 11
IMMU'vltwtiM'Ha of fry, a^lt-gt^i 9
Kcxal, inflwiiu- on Krimtli 9
Kiaal, (liMcult til >ii|i|ily pnnivr 10
l-'rancia, Utf Francia, qiiiit*^ 10
tjBkx-tnnit, »!«•• iif youiiK 9
Ij»*« Urvnl «t»((«-«iif (ry 8
LiitMtora, an- I'ltiiiiilula k lien vihiiik 9
Lulaitrr rmiiniiaaiiiii (IHIIH) rfiriTHl ti>. 9
MaitUiiil, Mir.l. *i. i|uiitMl 10
Marino fry vor^ driiciitr 9
Mtkrinv BioUitpcHl Sta. of Canaila 8
^Iichi^Bn rxiarinw'nta rf fry 10
< llijwtiona t<i fry |iUiitinir 9
.r aiiHWcrwi 10
I'acifif aalnion fry, nixc of 8
K<>|>lii-a t4i oliJivti<nii> rt fry pUutinii 0, 10
Salmon fry, varying »i«r of 8
•Sliwl, atatff when fmalyolk t-xhaiiatod 7
Siimiw of planting yoiniK fry 11
Ti-rtli, »|>i»'«raii'* of ill vi)iin(f"li«<l.. 7
TfiniieratiirH of water wmri' tiy |il«ntf<l 9
Variation in (fro»th of fry 8, H, 10
WiM fr>', wrumi* ItMHott aiiiontp*t 9
Warliiitf HtAK^ (IfHiiiil 8
Young fry, festunii in vrry T 7
II. — The VomacnUr Nunes of Fiahei.
.Mi'Wif*' or i iBiiiiert-aii 14
Anirlt-m lilanu'worthy in naming tii<hfH 13
Knrlniciir Inirliot 21
Haiw, hlauk, iniH-naiiiHl 18
B.-aii, Dr. T. II. on Imrlot 22
Bint* iiick«ir«*l or Saiuir** 17
Bow-hii liaM varioiiH nanioi* ,. 19
Britioli (^liarr U
Brook trout niiK-nau>Ml 13
of Canada in a eharr 14
Brown trout an iiia|iiirolirtat»* nam** 19
Burbot hail aixtw-n naniiit 17, 21
K|Hltt«-<l 21
■ ■ Anii-rican, ia lir»t naui)' 21
Chaniplain aliad urf whitftinh 16
Cheney, Conimiwiioui'r A. N., on nanii' "pike" 18
C'huli eel or cunk 21
ConfuHion in fiiilKii iiaineii 12
C<kI, freshwater, or burlmt 21
CuKk 17, 21
Day, Dr. FranciH on trout r. uharr 14
Dog-fJHh haa no definite meaning 12
■I applied to liurbiit 21
M M mud-minuow 19
iiow 6n{Ami«) 19
Dutchman, a U. S. name for English trout 18
{>• r
v2i*iH
n— tiM ▼wMndar *• —Con,
r
Kfl|««»
jOk, •uatlil* <■( ormAiMd MMMWilatar*. KaUffTMU aiiMH>|)iiMi aamm .
<imun<iliii(
lUkr calM whilinf.
Hnrrint, Uk*. • mbmiinw
Horw iu«iki-n-i iun»|i|rfiwl tu Cuaair. . . .
Iitumnii iif Maokniiic Kiv*r.
•lack Malnxin, ii naniv fur pickiwt.. .
KMKMI, I»r. W . C_. ntuarka iin unobr
Kiak, N. H. namr Int gMinnwi
IjUMl-kK'kMl Milinun
Lkwynr •|it>iM lu Iwrliot mh< lariln.'.
ijMmn liurnit
LiiiB, fivnh watvr
Uwh, th<> atom-
Liichv, liaih <ir Inirhiit
Liiiwr iir Ukr tniut
Mwikpiwl ahark, clw tniv
MvM or Imrtait.
Mukincmip-, iiinuiltiKuf
Mathrnifiur, iir Uirlait. ...
Miithy
Minnow, no ilf Mnitf mntninv . . .
.. h"w wM-rw-tly B|.|ili»<l. ,.'.'[ ■
Miaiw la mkllv iIh' r\k
Mortality of MiHjalM ahail. ..'.
MittVelluiiir^, » «>mi|<Mj nauir
.Miilli-t, how niiiia|i|ilinl
tin- trtw
Miiltifiliiity of nanm oJijwtionaWr. .
NmiH-ni'latiirf a)i<|ulil uwiat not ninfuat-. .
<HHt'tal rriajrta niialcailInK owing to nanira
Oiutnanirhr, nuwilnif of
• hitario ahad aw i(a>i|ii-rMiux
I'lM'iHi- Salmon tht- ir iliatinctivp f<«tun«
I fnnaylvania roniuiiaaion r|u<Jt<^
I'ik*'. a miifuainir nanif
I'il'i-la'n'h or l»orr. .
Piikrrrl, how a|>|iliM| in Canada
(jiiinnat
Kol'Hah or Micki'ye aainHm
Kii'lianUni, I >r. <in Imrtait.
Kohin, wromrly nainMl in America
Kolnn, tlw KnKliah
Salnio wilnuiti a flctitioiia aiKvini! . Salmon, Hrof. .Ionian on tlif nanw. ......
" -lai^k, a mianonicr
Siioiuhanna, a niii.nomi»r. ! . . . callrd pikf |a-rt'h. Sardinr, M>-calM in Caiuulu . .
Sanger
Sandre
Scientific naniea liewilderiiig
Shad, the name niiauaed
Shad-waiter
Shark, mackerel, miHapolied to tunny Seven modea of mianamniK Huhea
Smelt, a whitefixh caliinl
" minnow called
Sockeye aalnion of Britiah Columbia "."
Si»itted burbot
Spring aalnion or qu:nnat
Stone, Mr. Livingston on Kuropean trout.. . '.
Tal6, a B. C. aalnion
Togiie
Touladi in K. C. iiada ......
Tradera' namen lor fiah
Trout, black liaaa culled
Weaktiah and chubcalled . . . .
■• Alekey ia the burlnt
Tunny miHnani(>d
Von Behr trr>ut an unfortunate name.. ...
«' .;' J •',' **"* orifhnated
>> all-eyed pike not a pike
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rAUK
WMkaTb th» «lk ■.■.■.■.'.■.■.'.'.■.'.'.'.'.'.'". .' .' 19. \*
W«UdBM, liUckhMaUM ■"
Wbilt4M\. lM>^r }•
MlMwhitiaf U
toimm »
Mnrlt.
Whllinc miHkp|ii>«<i-
WUmut • MUnHWi, iimih- nnt aihiiitvd
Wrifht, l*T<4><«i<ir lUmwy mt burbot'a luunv. Yiiumt fry muvalkid minnttwa.
31 17 It
n
2ft.
m -AeellmtlmttoB of lialL
AcclinwtiMliim, limit* of, littlv kiMiwn
AiiM-rioan bnxk tiiMit |4iinlHl in Britain
AiuwInHtMUM <»■ uu'iHliiitf ttah
Atluitio mIumhi, irtmitimi of, a partial kikchm
Raltic M«, varioiM MiliinstinMl fltliM in.
Harfiirth. Hr.. iliiw**' in iuHi-a|«wning Hih..
Itnu rt'( tr Lakm, «id lUid lotntfru in
Hnwdiuc lA ini|>mnd«.<l nalnKin Hinilttful
BniwnTslr. .1. H«rvi«', mi <•(!«< nt mviiunnHmt
Hull'hoad- i>r eaittuli vf rj- hunty
<'»t»rtr<ii ..HIH or H<->ir<.?HlinK ttnn
CatHi.li i^naritNiii irf lift* ■
Canail'Mi >and-Uii'k<'<l wlniun
M .1 .< IhetiriMi rtwarding
rmklwi living dintam fttwii "fa 24.
CckI trib«. arx marina rawiit l>iirl»l
Codling aacfiid intii frt-ali watfr
Ciniditiiiu* for accliinatiiation.
("iix. I)r. Philiis on land-loi'kMl tnu'lt
I >»l{ il»li, mariiir in f rvali waUT. . . .
Kffypt, fXantplfM uf acclimati/.ation in
Knvirunnifnt a«i«u Bull (»w Mr. .1. Harvif Brown)
Kxtmnra of tt-nacity in liali-life
Flimndv.-a in frwili wat«-r
< irniinn carp t«-naciou> of lifr
* traylinfT in Baltic and Caapian Sni
<>m'rnMty, im|iort»nt rxio-rmu'nt in
Ilakr, niarinr, found in frmili water^
HfiTiiig triU', anarln>?iMMiB p»(iwi»'" i'f
(rmh wat4<r variety ni italtic
Iwlan.1, fr«>h water itid in
.lordaii. Prof., on Yt-Howaton*- Park H»hri
Loetinilit., Hv\. Cathrr, on liamin lakna in N. W.T • • ■
Ijkntl'lovkKl aalnion 2ft.
I. ■. in Norvay -»
.. Lake Hunm ■
H Svottinh f xpiriuientH
Melntciah, l*ro(. W. C, fre«li wattr herring exijerim^nt
.. .. yonng Hat fl' 'i in atrvain*
Mitchell, Dr. .1. C, Egypt, on Hah a.cliinatixntion
< hitario aalnion .
.. ^{aafieivauii.
< hiananicl v in Province of ^ueliec ...
' lyat^'ra in f reah water
Papiiieau, Mr. Louia, carp wwda.
Paciflo aalnion, ►■'eeding of land locked
Peri'h, yellow, in aea water.
Peril iphtnalniua, nn ani|>hil)iau fiah
Porpoiaea in freah water (aee Whalea)
>4almon fry die in aalt water •
I. (lareut, in »»lt water pond
Hchultx, Ute Sir .I<ihn, in planting N.W.T. lakes
tiharka, marine, die in freah water
freah water apeciea of •
Smelt, f rmh water variety of 81,
Sole, acclimatued
S|>ring aalmon or quinnat, land locked
8tickleba«ka in aait and freah water
Striped baaa in rivera
S«ckera in hot watera
aft an sa
34 .13
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31 31
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29 34 2B 2S 2» 2tl 31
aa
32
28 2«
sn
34
27 .-M 3ft 28 SO 26 24
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28 33 ."U 27 34 33 29
I
In. AecUmftfeintioa of Fiih. — dmduded.
Tom-cod endure clungaa.
iraggMted for N.W.T.iUkM
Temperature, high, Pmcifio Mdmon endure
Trout, river, become Uke trout in .ScotUnd
Trout in w»rm water*
Turbot in frwh water
Utility of Huh acclimatisation
Wemem, land locked nalmon in lake.
Wlialeg in fre«li water
Whelk (Bureinum) in fre«h water
Wilniot, Mr. 8., impounded salmon in nalt water.
M 28 36 29
3.-;
2B 28 25 26
I.
PLANTING YOUNG FRY: ITS COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES.
BY PROFESSOR EDWARD E. PRINCE, DOMINION COMMISSIONER OF
FISHERIES, OTTAWA.
It was my intention, in the present report, to treat exhaustively the much disouMed question of the planting of yearling or ' fingerling ' fish, as comparKl with the planting of newly-hatched fry. The latter method of stocking waters is that mainly carried out in the system of artificial fish-culture conducted by the Department of Marine and Fisheries. The controversy, respecting the merits of the two systems, hasbpen actively carried on for more than a, quarter of a century, and fish-culturists are still divided into two schools, the partisans of one school being as emphatic and zealous in their own special advocacy, as the partisans of the other. The adoption of one system does not imply the total disparagement of the other, and there is certainly much to be said for the rearing of the fry of fishes, in our hatcheries, until they are robust and independent ; until, in other words, they are able to look after themselves. In order to do justice to the two methods : the 'young fry' method, and the 'fingerling' or 'yearling' method, the various poinu raised require to be dealt with exhaustively and I therefore propose to treat in a future report the whole subject with some thoroughness, in order that the practical aspects of the matter may be fully set forth, as theoretical coilsidera- tiohs, have, it must be confessed, hitherto figured very largely in this important discussion. My present purpose is simply to state, in the meantime, the principal points which may be urged in favour of the system carried out in Canada. I shall do so as concisely and as clearly as I can, reserving for the present those more technical and com- plex features which can be understood by the embryologiht, but are of less moment to the practical man, to whom the more salient points appear, of course, to have the greatest weight. It is necessary to point out that by the term* fry, young fry, or newly- hatched fry, is meant the true larval condition, before the features of the embryonic stages are lost. When a young fish emerges from the egg, at the close of the incubation process, it bears no resemblance in most cases, to the parent fish. It is, as a rule, not at all like a fifh : but resembles a small worm with a protruding bag of yolk attached to the under side. I have often heard people declare, on seeing newly-hatched fish in a jar or tank, that they looked like wriggling insects. A minute scientific examination shows that the young fish larva is not only in external form and features, but also in internal structure and anatomical arrangement quite difierent from a fish, indeed is almoet as unlike as the caterpillar is unlike the butterfly. At first the newly-batched larval fish feeds only on its store of yolk, but as soon as this is exhausted, it begins to change ita shape, the mouth, which at first is not used at all, becomes actively movable and numerous minute teeth protrude from the surface of the jaws. Indeed, in the young shad, for instance, teeth develop long before the food-yolk is used up. The late Professor Ryder called attention to this precocious appearance of teeth in the infant shad. Of his pre- viously published statement ' that the yolk £ack disappeared on the fourth to the fifth day after the young fish had left the egg,' he said (Bullet. U.S. Fish. Commis., 1881, p. 241) : ' Although this statement is in a broad sense true, I find upon more accurate investigation that there is a small amount of yolk retained in the yolk-sack for a much longer time. It appears in fact that there are really two periods of absorption of the yolk which may be very sharply distinguished from each other. The first extends from the time of hatching to the end of the fourth or fifth day, according to temperature.
8
daring which mwt of the yolk is abwrhed The woond penod of the kbMrption df
the yolk extends in the ih^d over sbout twice th»t of the 6nt, or about ten days . The function of the yolk^ack, daring the flrrt period, appear* to be to build up the utnioture of the growing embryo ; during the second, not to much to build it up a* to BuaUin it in vigorous health until it can capture food to swallow and digest, eo that it may no lo*lger be dependent upon the store of food inherited from its parent Minute conical teeth appear on the lower jaws and in the pharynx of the young shad, about the second or third day after hatohing .. . I have never observed food m the alimentary canal until ten or twelve days after the young fish had left the egg. At about the beginning of the second week considerable may be seen in the livinK specimens. But the intestine is often not yet very densely packed with food even at this period. At the age of three weeks an abundance of food is found in the intestine. A young flsh a month old, or even three weeks old in some species, begins to assume the fish-like form, the fins losing their embryonic or larval form, and the external and internal structure of the growing creature changes to a more mature condition. Between theeariiest or im- mature larval stage and the more mature stage, when the form of the adult begins to be recognizable, there U often a peculiar posHarval stage, charactonzed in some marine species by the most extraordinary transient developments, which often give the young fish a most grotesque appearance.
Broadly speaking, then, there is a larval and a post-larval condition, the latter insensibly passing into the stUl small, but externally mature condition called by fa«h- culturists the fingeriing stage. The latter is often cailed the yeariing stage, although the fish may not be a year old. Indeed the rate of growth in any particular batch of fishes varies very much. Frank Buokland drew attention to this in his little work en- titled 'Fish Hatching' (Undon, 1863), and quotes an authority as saying that of three specimens of young salmon taken from the Stormontfield ponds in Srotland, on April 1. 1863, all of the same age, one was 6J inches long and weighed 646 grains; another was 3* inches long and weighed 135 grains ; an.l the third was 2^ inches long, and weighed 23 grains. The lost had the dark parr-bands along the sides, the second had indications of small scales, and in the largest the scales were large silvery and in an advanced stage of growth. As Buckland remarked, young fish whether kept in hatchery tanks, reared in large ponds or turned into streams, vary veiy much m growth : some individuals growing more rapidly and attaining a greater size than others. In a study which I made at the Marine Biological Station of Canada of three batcheij of Pacific salmon fry this year, I found a similar though not quite «) marked a diflFerence in growth. The specimens in each series (five or six dozen hsh in each series) were presumably about the same age, and in one series they varied from 42 millimeters (1U"'> *» 31 millimetres (IJin.) in length. In another batch (belonging to the brood of another year) they varied from 6.5 millimetres (2^in.) to SC millimetres (lAin.) and in another year's series they varied from *J "oillimetres (UHn.,) to 34 millimetres (IJin.) The weli known authority on angling, Mr. Stoddard states, that the nature of the food greatly influences growth : ' Trout were placed in three separate tanks, one of which was supplied daily with worms, another with hve minnows, and the third with those small dark coloured water flies which are to be found moving about on the surface under banks and sheltered places. The trout fed with worms grew slowly, and had a lean appearnnce ; those nourished on minnows, which, it was observed, they darted at with great voracity, became much larger ; while such as were fattened upon flies only, attained in a short time prodigious dimensions, weighing twice aa much as both the others together, although the quantity of food swallowed was in nowise so great ' Under natural conditions, however, where the food available for all the indi- viduals in a brood of young is practically the same, the difference in size must be mainly due to inherent variability, dependent upon very obscure causes. Such vanataon in riowth, which is so noticeable within the limits of one species considered separately, is no less marked when we compare several different species together. One kind or species attains a known average si7e at a certain stage in the growth of the young. Thus a newly hatehed salmon measures a little more than half an inch in length ; at the fourth week the larva has doubled its length, and in the third month it attaint two inches, while in the fourth month it is no lesa than two and s half to nearly four inches long,
and • month later m much m five inohes in length. Brook trout in the fourth month Me nraally two inohea from tip to tip, three inches when nine or ten monthi old, and fire inehm when a year old. Lake trout (Salvelinui namayeutk) are six inches long at the end of twelve months, and black bass are i'>ur to six inches. The growth of vpry few marina larval fishes has been ohservedrbut it is interesting to note that in a batch of young wdf-fish {Anarrhiehat lupus), a fish reaching a length of five or six feet, the larval forms were a fraction over a quarter of an inch long on hatching out, in the fourteentli week (3^ mcmths) they were not more than half an inch in length, this slow growth being proba- bly due to confinement in tanks.
Marine fish beins as a rule of very minute size and delicate in organization when hatched probably reach the sAme length as frosh water species in a much more extended period of time. The observed variation, which is frequently so very great in young fishes of precisely the same age, is of moment in connection with this question of young fry vtrsut fingerlings. ' Certain fishes moreover exhibit a cannibalistic habit at a very early stage. Black bass when very young, devour each other, even when little over an inch in length, so that it is necessary to take special steps to prevent this. I have on a previous occasion (Rep. Canadian Lobster Commiesion, 189H) pointed out, in the case of the lobster, that amongst young lobster fry ' cannibalism is frequent, and the method adopted of attacking each other is very striking, as the young lobster barely a few weeks old invariably selects the most vulnerable point, viz., the opening behind the head-shield. The stronger larva springs upon the back of the weaker and savagely bites him at the point named.' Frank fiuckland describes the voracity of finserling salmon and trout and said ' they will certainly eat the young grayling when they ran catch them, for they are very active : they also eat young perch. I have placed perch spawn in their tanks, and as the perch, which are exceedingly minute, hatch out, they are caught up and devoured in an instant.'
Whatever arguments may lie urged for or against the prevailing system of planting newly hatched fry, it can hardy be doubted by any fair-minded critic that the attempt to stock depleted waters with countless millions of young fish, as is done in Canada, must have some Iwneficial results. There is certainly much evidence in favuur of the view that benefit has resulted. Would better results follow the adoption of the system of planting advanced fry or fingerlings ? There are certain points urged agiiiiist planting very young fry which merit some attention. Nothing, it is said, can be more helpless and defenceless than y^uiig Hsh imm»diately on hatching out They must l>e at the mercy of numberless enemies. This objection has this defect that as a matter of fact most of the fry are some days, or at any rate some hours old when deposited in the open waters The planting is postponed until at large quantity have liberated themselves from the egg, some time is occupied in removing them from the tanks, carting them to the railway or conveying them by wagon to the more or less distant localities to he stocked. In other words the youngest fry are always 12 to 48 or 72 hours old and are not ' newly born ' young fish when placed in lakes or rivers. Two or three weeks elapse before all are planted, and the fry are thus getting older as each batch is sent nif day after day during the distribution. Hence the majority of artificially hatched fry are really much older, and must be more sturdy and robust, than the delicate young fish exp<Med on the natural spawning beds. The further objection that artificially hatched fry are suddenly transferred fn>m warmer water in the hatchery tanks to the colder water -^f the lake or stream outside is also baseless. The ample supply of water pouring through the hatchery troughs has b«en found to be, as a rule, many degrees colder thnn the water to )« stocked. Ice is always used in keeping the water cold when transporting the young fish in large tanks. Records have been kept showing that the water in the hatcheries is more equable and cool at the distributing time than in the waters outside. The helpless fry, it has also been urged, being hatched under unnatural condi- tions are untaught to seek shelter, and must be devoured by watchful enemies. It should be remembered that the eggs are taken from wild parent fish. The fry batched from these cannot fail to inherit, by the inflexible law of heredity, the instincts of their parents. They act, as indeed they cannot avoid acting, precisely as the young of wild fish do. Hence, when the fry have been carefully watched at the time of planting, they
10
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hkve been noticed to Mt with grt»i •Imrtaam and intclligenoa, aad at oaoa d«rt off to the nearest arailable ihelter.
The objections asoallj nrRed, apply indeed wilh greater force to young Hi>h kept for a long period nnder artificial conditions, and rear«d to the flngerling or yearling staKe. Such young fish mast beoome aocustomed,to thi safe and protected conditions provided for them in the tonks or rearing ponds. In such ponds the usual enemies are absent, the water as a rule i« warmer, and food is supplied to them, of kinds and at times wholly unlike those which obtain in the cnse of naturally hatched fish. ' If the try are kept until they are of fair sire,' wrote the late Francis Francis, one of the hest authorities on iish-onlture, ' fed regularly every day, never seeing an enemy of any kina, what » ill become of them when they are turned into deep water amongst foes, without the preliminary and probationary life on the comparatively safe shallows, being all un- accustomed to seek their own food, or see enemies f They are far more likely to faU victims then, and less likely to thrive on their own exertions, unless it is proposed to keep them until they are beyond the size taken by pike and large trout' I cannot do better than quote the opinion of Mr. Francis on a further point, as it fully coincides with the view which I have already published, and to which I still adhere. « I have heard people urge, that if the young fish are turned at an early age into the river, they will fall a prey to predaoeous fish. It is possible that a small percentage of them may, but the remainder will easily learn to know their enemies and avoid them ; besides, in putting them into the river, the most shallow places at the sides, and the most shel- tered spots should be selected, and the fish should be distributed in small numbers in such places as predaoeous fish are the least likely to come and look for them. Added to this, the remainder will thrive so much better in the wider area of the river, and will grow so much faster that this will counterbalance any slight loss.' ExperimenU have beer> iH with a view of comparing the rate of growth of fiy in confined waters, and ^ha-ilil. rated in a stream or creek and it has been shown that the fry which were plani«.c . jon after hatching and which subsisted on natural food under natural con- ditions grew much more rapidly than those nnder artificial conditions.
I ain aware that some experiments in the Detroit river, carried on in 189", under the Michigan F'sh Commission, point to the opposite conclusion, for of a quantity of white- fish (CoreymiHit) fry confined in boxes in the river able to subsist on natural food, only three survived from April 20 to July 23, by which time they were nearly two inches in length, but the boxes were twice Uinpercd with, and the results were thus deprived of their chief value, though it was noticed that a batch of several hundred kept in the hatchery, fared much better. ' These had grown rapidly, much faster in faot than
those in the river,' the report states, ' and they were in fine condition when
moved (at about the age of ten months) they were three or four inches in length. In good condition, but small for their age.' No reliable conclusion can be drawn from this experiment, which is precisely the reversj of that communicated to Frank Buck- land. (See FisTi Hatching. 1863, p. 160.) ' Amongst the advantages of eariy turning into the nver must be reckoned that of rapid growth, ilome of those (wrote a cor- respondent to Mr. Buckiand) whic" -ou and I turned in were, after only nine days, found to be three or four times !. . in those of the same age left behind in the
troughs.' An assistant in this «.. , uient observed some of the young fish on the shallows, and stated that one of these liberated fish would weigh down four of the fish confined in the hatchery tanks. This is indeed what might be anticipated. Most animals are more vigorous, healthy and of more rapid natural growth than when confined under artificial conditions. 'The old idea (wrote the late Sir J. O. Maitland)
was to turn out fish big enough to take care of themselves.' But it is not a
question of size, but of food, habit and trabing. Yeariings will live, it is claimed, where young fry would perish ; but planting of fish should always be in favourable localities only.
The main considerations, which weigh in favour of the planting of newly hatched fry may be summarized as follows :
1— The fry being placed in their natural surroundings, food, temperature, and other conditions must be more favorable than in the cram^ conditions of a hatcherr or a rearing pond.
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3. — Th« fry endowed with their natand inatinota inherited from the parent fiah, exeroiae tboM inatinota at the earlieat moment, and do not become acouatomed to an artificial environment.
3. — It enal>lea a vaiit quantity of young tioh to be handled, whereaa, an infinitely smaller quantity alone can be dealt with if the labour, expenae and difficulty oi feeding; rearing and caring for are to be faced.
4. — Fry are most vigoroua and alert soon after hatching, but when kept con- fined and their stock of food yolk becomes exhausted, they are less vigorous, swim less freely, and require great care in management.
S-— When fish are planted at the young fry age, the public receive the greatest return and most widespread benefit. This would not be possible were a restricted quantity of young fish meroly available for planting. It idlows of the maximum of output at the minimum of cost.
6. — Lastly tlie planting of young fry has been successful, in spite of losses when planting, and undoubted losses (from predaceous enemies) after planting. It is incred- ible that 50 or 80 or 200 millions of fry of various fishes can be planted in Canadian waters, as they hare been planted for over a quarter of a century, and have no effect whatever. The popular opinion, the opinion of practical men, the strong conviction of fishermen especially is that the beneficial results are patent and undeniable.
It has been shuwu that most of the stock objections urged are not merely based on gross misconceptions, they are the reverse of the facU^ The eggs in our hatcheries are, at any rate, safely shielded from numberless enemies and hurtful influences. When the fry hatch as Mr. Seymour Bower pertinently asked (in a paper in the Mich., Fish Commiss. Rep., 1896,) ' the question of how much longer they should be held, without any attempt at feeding, becomes an importtat one. Whitefish fry, as such, are never more vigorous than at the time of hatching : they are t'ree swimmers, and begin to take food within a very few days. It would seem, therefore, that the sooner they are set free in their native habitat, to mingle with nature's fry the better. There is no- thing to be gained by holding them and there is great risk in carrying them beyond the time when nourishment other than that supplied by the food sack is essential to normal development.' It is indeed impossible to supply food, at all corresponding to the natural food in quantity, or in its nature, to fry retained until the post-larval condition ; and the resulting fish may be stunted, or at any rate will bear evidence in the adult stage of the unnatural conditions under which they were reared. They will reveal what Frank Buckland called the * semi tame ' condition all through life.
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II.
THE VERNACULAR NAMES OE EISHES.
By Profkssor E. E. Pbince, Doxikioh (Tommiisioiibr of FuHERin, Ottawa.
The editor of » wall-known organ of the angling fraternity was compelled, a few years ago, to admit, ' the utter impossibility of ever clarifying the muddle caused by anglers dinging so persistently to local nomenclature in the identification and classifica- tion of fishes.' Anglers are not, however, by any means the worst offenders, and one of the main sources of confusion and uncertainty in this matter is the inveterate habit, prevalent amongst ft?bermen an-l those who handle fish commercially, of giving special names, often without rhyme or reason, to the kinds of fish which they send into the market. With regard to kinds which are uncommon, or of no value for commercial purposes, no name is too absurd to select, and the fishery expert and naturalist while frequently experiencing c'ifiiculty in determining precisely what fish may be meant, when a fisherman or dealer uses a special name for a common commercial species, finds the difficulty infinitely increased when some rare or uncommon fish is referred to. It is, as a rule, impossible to know what is meant when a fisheraian speaks of a ' Sunfish,' or a ' Dog-fish,' or a ' Minnow,' for each of these terms is habitually used for half a dozen creature^ wholly different and unlike. To add to the bewilderment, scientific experts have in recent years decided to throw aside generic and specific names, which from long use and familiarity have become universally accepted and recognized, and have substituted for them, in a great many cases, obscure and even uncouth and for- bidding names, which, unlike the names so long adopted, are neither descriptive nor euphonious. This exchange of well known scientific \iame8 on which even amateur naturalists were wont with some certainty to rely, has been adopted in obedience to a principle of priority, consistent and defensible no doubt from an antiquarian point of view, but wholly confusing and misleading from the standpoint of utility and convenience. The once uniform and reliable scientific names, which were a safe refuge under the bewildering; variations of local nomenclature, have been thrown into hopeless and in- extricable confusion. Thus the familiar Gadus aeglifiwig, th.t common haddock, has become Melanogrammug (uglifinus the large tunny is Albacora thynnus instead of Thffnnuii vulgaris : and its close r^la*' ve the bonito is Gymnosarda pelamii, instead of Pelamys aanla.
It is no matter of surprise that the early settlers in this western continent, anxious for old association's sake to keep in use names familiar to them in the old land, should have applied such names, borne by very different creatures, to fishes, birds and animals new to them in this country and bearing some more or less distant resemblance to the original.^. Thus it is easy to understand that the name 'robin' was applied to a bird which resembles in hardly a single feature the original /■.rilfuicua ruhecula, or robin redbreast of England. The large aggressive loud voiced nervous thrush 'every motion decided and alert,' the American robin ( Menda migrcloria,) is the reverse of the small delicately-formed, retiring bird with throat and breast of a deep orange red colour, whoso song is of a sweet, low, plaintive character, and whose habit is to haunt the dwellings of men only in the winter time, for the English robin, unlike ours, is non-mi- gratory. Our robin is a typical, somewhat noisy, thrush — the original robin a retiring, tender-voiced warbler, indeed the Sylviinae as a whole differ in every feature from the thrush family the Turdinae to which our North American robin belongs. It was no doubt for precisely similar reasons, largely old association, that the name speckled-trout or brook-trout, was applied to that most widely distributed and highly esteemed fish
IS
S€Uv«l*nut fontintUu. In the report nf the PennnylvanU State Commiasionen of Fuh- •ries (1895, p. 221,) reference it made to this inttuioe of mis-nMning, and the following remark* put the matter so a| propriately that I quote the paragraph rerbatim : — As reoently determined the beautiful brook-trout of our waters is not a true salmon bat a oharr, a circumstance which need not cause the angler or the lover of this attractive fish any sorrow, since all the luembers of this group of salmonoids are noted not only for their beauty and grace but their gimM qualities. No truer words were ever spoken than those uttered by an eminent ichthyologist when ho declared that ' no higher praise can be given to a salmonoid than to call it a charr.' It came by the name of trottt through the Pilgrim fathers who, when they first saw it in New England, mis- took it for tlie some li*h they knew in their own Devonshire streams. Had they come from the north of England or from Scotland and been more observing, the error in all likelihood would have never been made. But brook trout or speckled trout or charr, or whatever name may be applied to the fish, it needs no description. There are few anglers who are not well acquainted with this most beautiful and graceful of fishes. It is more eagerly Boui{ht for and by the majority of resh water sportsmen in the east prised more than any other member of the finny tribe, while epicures regard it* flesh as unsurpaKsed for delicacy and richnens of flavour. U nqaestionably, the pure cold water and the OHually picturesque character of the streams in which the brook trout live has something to do with making this fish a general favourite among sportsmen.
Amongst many evils, which result from a lack of uniformity in the use of popular names, are the errors which inevitably ^.ppear in statistical records and comparative tables. Unless the preciM application of any particular name frequently used indiflfer- ently for several fishes, be fir^it ascertained, the information aiforded by official reports may be most micleading. Familiar names like trout, salmon, smelt, herring, and pike, are used with utter carelessness, and so grossly misapplied that it is difficult to understand how any intelligent community can continue, year after year, to keep in circulation names so utterly inappropriate to many of the fishes upon which they have been imposed.
As an example of the erratic use of popular names even in official publications, I may instance the case of a very valuable, and sumptuously illustrated report of a Qame and Fish Association on this continent, in which I find that the pike-perch, dor^, or wall-eyed pike, is repeatedly called 'Susquehanna Salmon.' It is so called in the table of spawning seasons given in the book ; but in the text, only a few lines lower down on the same page, the fish is referred to as the wall-eyed pike, whereas in the body of the report the same fish is several times mentioned as the pike-perch. This last named term is the most appropriate and moat descriptive, and has been in common use for a century or two at least in European countries. This ioHtance will illustrate the confused state of mind — not to say of nomenclature, which leads to the use of three almost con- tradictory terms for one fish iu the pages of the same report.
Similarly the weakfish or squeteague (Cyno*ei<m regalis) in the southern states is called ' trout '. Indeed all the various species are thus erroneously named, as Profes- sor Jordan says : — ' All ... are absurdly called " trout " in the southern States — a name also applied in the same regions to the black bass.'
The misnomers, innocently applied for old association's sake, are responsible for much confusion ; but this has been enormously increased by the lern defensible and erratic method, adopted by men who have applied names which, through ignorance, they imagine to be rightly applied. Numerous examples of this occur amongst fishes, but perhaps the most glaring instance is the case familiar to the hunter of the magnifi- cent stag of the western hills and plains — the Cemu canadentis which was called elk by men who no doubt imagined, in pure ignorance, that it bore some resemblance by reason of its size, and other features, to the elk of Europe. The European elk is really almost identical with the moose of North America. The late Professor Spencer Baird once wrote : * It is somewhat unfortunate that the European name of this animal, the elk, should be applied here in America to an entirely different animal or deer. Much con- fusion has been produced in thi.n way, and it becomes necessary to ascertain the nation- ality of an author before it is possible to know exactly what the word elk is intended to convey.' Nor is the name wapiti, generally supposctd to be the Indian name for the great Canada stag, more accurate, for Mr. J. B. Tyrrell has recorded that the Indian
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wune for thu flne BaaMBal ia ' wMkaaew, ' Error* in nonmoUtaro hardly I«m gUriaf •re not unoomnion in the BMiing of fiahw, indMd they are far too frequent
There are indeed, ■peaking in general terms, at leaet Mven wty« in which the names of flshea, a« of birJs and other animals, have bevn ohoeen and vpplied on thia oontinent. First, we may note the adoption of Indian or Indu-Frenob names — namaa which the early Mttlera continued to apply to animaU because they were already in use. Am a ruir, these early namtM always more or less accurately deiicribe features in the torms on which they were bestowed. Thus tlie name maskinong^, commonly, but very erroneously spelt rauskellanste or masoalonge in the United States, is really an Indian name, the Chippewa name for pike being ' Kenosha ' and the prefix Mis or Mas means liirge or great, so that MaHkenoeha or Maskinoge (corrupted into Maski- nonge) ia really a large deformed pike. So also the word ouananiche, sometimes Hpelt wananiohe, or winninish, is really the old Muntagnnis Indian name, the Montagnais Indianu being the Algonkin tribes who dwelt in the wild mountainous Saguenay country, as did also the Naskapis or Labrador Indians. In dome lotrned and ex- haustive articleH upon tlfe original name for the ' land-looked saluion ' of tjuebec Mr. EL T. D. Chambers has pointed out that the usual signitication ' little salmon ' (iche or u/te being a Montagnais diminutive termination) is not correct, owen-o, pronounced ' when-na ' is an interrogative, while ounann or unani is an eddying pool below a fall or rapid ; and from either terms may have originated the word ' ouananiche,' which may thus mean ' the little what-is it fiih ' or the ' little below- the- rapids pool fish,' both of which names may be paralleled by many examples in Indian nomenclature. Thus the large Mackenxie river fiKxl-fish, combining features of the pike family and the whitefish, so puzzled the early French explorers that they called it the 'dont-know-what-flsh, ' or the 'undetermined iish ' the inconnu-^a name which the fish permanently bears. The word Touladi — a variety of the great lake trout is practically the old Indian name, whereas " lunge " the name in some parts of eastern Canada for the same fish, is no doubt a French term having reference to the length of the body in this species as compared with the brook trout or the whitetish. The name for the small but valuable saimonoid, the blue-back salmon of the Froser and other British Columbia rivers, viz, the Sockeye, is really that of the Indians inhabiting the lower part of the Fraser Iliver— the word being 8aw-(|uai or Suck-kin, a name which is replaced by the term Ta-lo higher up the course of the river.
It may be pointed out that in the United States the fish is usually known as the red-fish, more perhap>< on account of the brilliant red colour assumed by the male when on the spawning grounds, than the deep red flesh, which is very characteristic of this species and gives it its rpevial value on the markets.
Un the other hand such names as gospereau for the migratory alewife, called 'kiak' in Nova Scotia, is clearly a French- Acadian nam", and it may be that togue, as cer- tainly longe or lunge applied a* already stated to varieties of the great lake trout in New Brunswick and the province of Quebec, are French, unless the word togue be Indian. Dr. Perley says, however, that the word to)tue is used by the lumbermen, while " the In- dians designate it by a name equivalent to fi-esh-water cod.'
Second, we may note that uf the names applied on grounds of old association, perhaps the most patent is that of the adoption of the name brook-trout, or sptckled trout, for a fish which is not in a strict scientific sense a true trout at all ; but, OS already pointed out, is really a charr, and closely allied to species of charr found somewhat locally in lakes in Great Britain and certain European countries. The fish which occurs in certain Scottish, Welsh and Cumberland lakes in the British Isles, and is most closely related to our brook trout, in not called a trout at all, but is known as a charr. The genuine brook trout, the Salmo Jario is a true Salmo, and not to be confused with any member of the genus Salvdintis, or charrs. In size and in many features our Salvflinus fontinali* or brook trout, recalls the trout of the old world, and the earliest English, Scottish and Irish settlers liked to think that the streams in the new land, like those in the old, were trout streams. ' When the New England States were fir<t peopled from Britain,' said the late Dr. Francis Day, " this fish was called a " trout " for but few of the early emigrants could have had an opportunity of observing a "charr," and they gave it the name that most
15
iiMrly ramioded them of » form whioh axUtad in the mother oooatiy.' Thui they hftbituftllT ipoke of the Caneduui charr m the brook trout or tpeokled trout Thi* wm done deliwratelv and with the knowledge that thia trout, like flah in the lake* and streams of North America, wan not the same as the trout of Enxlish rivers and Scottish bums. Dr. Jordan has on many occasions pointed out with iiingular cleameHs the main points in which the American brook trout or charr differs from the original brook trout ai Eon^. Referring to the almost nnavoidabla blunder of the white settlers on this continent, he says:— 'Finding no real trout with black spota and large scales in the rivers, and having forgotten the name of •' charr," they gave to thb fish the name of trout, or speckled trout, or brook trout, and in spile of the fact thai in reality it is not a trout but a charr. the name uf brook trout is likely to adhere for ever to the Salvelinut foHlinalu. Real trout there are none on our Atlantic Coast, and salmon trout is likewise wanting, but the name salmon trout is often given to brook trout, or charr, which has run out into the sea ; and it is also often given to another charr, a very large, coanie species, in which the red spoU have faded out to a cream colour, which is found in all the lakes from Alaska to Maine, across the northern half of our continent This is the great lake trout (Salvelinii* namajfcunh), and except for its larg« site and comparative ooarsenesH, it would never be mistaken either for trout or salmon. The name salmon trout is wholly inapplicable to it'
In a very clear and luminous way this eminent authority thus compares the species to which the names 'trout,' 'salmon,' and 'charr,' were originally applied. He further says :— ' In order to get a better idea of the proper application of the various vernacular nnmes that are used in America, it is necessary to go back to Euripe, the source from which these names have been drawn. Fiwt, we have a large fish, common in the salt waters of northern Europe, spending most of its life near the shores in regions where the water is cold and clear, and ascendinjf the rivers in the spring when the high water comes down from the mountains, going through the rapids with great force, leaping cat- aracts, and finally casting iu spawn on the gnivetly bed of a small stream. This was known to the Latin writers as Salmo, the word coming from talio, which means " to leap," and in the different languages which are derived from the Latin having as its names some form of the word "salinoa" The scientitic name of this fish is Salmo talar. Very similar to the salmon in all technical respects, like it having black spots over the surface of the body and rather large silvery scales, is a smaller fish which rarely descends to the sea, and makes its home in the rivers and lakes throughout north- ern and central Europe. This fa'sh was known by the name of Fario to the old I^atin writers, the most important of whom, in this regard, was Ausonius, who wrote feelingly and poetically of the fishes of the River Moselle. From the Latin word " fario " comes the German name " forelle." This fish is the trout of all English writers, the trout of Izaak Walton, and the iicientific name is Salmo fario.' Professor Jordan also very lucidly
refers to the species on this continent, which received the European names, saying :
In the lakes of (ireenland and the eastern part of British America, the European charr {Salvelifuis alpinim) is as abundant as it is in Europe— a fact which has been onlv lately made manifest, and even yet there is some question whether some of these which are found in the lakes in New Hampshire have not some time or other been brought over and planted there from Europe.
In the lakes of Maine, and on the north, there is still another charr, smaller and finer than the European one, the Blue-back trout of the Rangley Lakes, known as Salvellnus oquamia.
"Thus, instead of one of the salmon, salmon trout, trout, and charr, of Europe, we have in the Eastern States the same salmon, the same charr, and three other charrs, but neither the trout nor the salmon trout.
In coming to the Pacific coast, the settlers of California brought the names with them from the East, but found none of the fi-shes to which they had been accustomed. Salmon they found, similar in habits and in value as food, but many of them larger, finer, and vastly more abuutlant than any of the salmon of Europe. California salmon differ from all the rest of the salmon family, in the fact that the number <rf rays in the anal fin is froin fourteen lo twenty, while in all the salmon and trout on the other side of the Atlantic this fin contains no more than nine or ten rays. The Pacific coaat
Jmf
u
r
■almon have »lio m inorwuwd namber of btmnohkMt«gali, an ineraaMd niunbar of gUi rakan, and a maoh largar namber of pyloric aeem, or glands about tha sUmiaoh. Tbajr are, tberelbra, in atrietDaai, not aalmon at all, hut •omething mora intmuely Mlmon than the falinon of Europe itaalf rwlly U. Tbar have therefore been plaoed in another genoa known an OneorK^ehut. For the lack of any other oommon name they are afwan ■poken of and will alwaya be oannrd, at long aa the canning industry last*, under the name of SaloKm. The Chinotdi n«ln^ Qttinnnt, waa early applied Vj them, and if we feel the need of iome other nanw to diatinguiah them from real aalHiOn we may call the Pacific coaat lalmon Quinnat, or Quinnat lalmon. Theie apeciea all live in the ocean, aacend the riven in the spring and rammer, spawn in fresh water in the fall, the young, as toon as they are able to swim, floating Uil foremast down the river and growing rapidly as soon as they reach the ocean and the peculiar ocenn food. There are five species of th«»e Quinnats, varying; in sixe, colour, *o., and differing especially in the quality of the flesh : but all of the lame genus.
Besides the salmon, the settlers of California found in the bro'ks itn abundance of what they called trout. These are blaek-tpotUd, nilverscaled, and in ever* way dottly rftemUt the trout of Europe, and are wholly unlike the oharr, or so-ealled trout of the Eastern States. The name trout by rights belongs to these fiihes, and they are placed in the genus Salmo. A charr is also found in Pacific waters, but as the name ' oharr ' had been wjiolly forgotten by our ancestors, they could only call this, like the others a trout
A third mode of naming and one which has led to some confusion is that of the inno- cent application of names, which appear to the ordinary mind appropriate, but are in reality not tuiuble and not correct. Thufi the term lake-herring is usually given by fishermen and dealers to fishes (of several species) which are really whitefishes and not herring at all. The so-called herring of the great lakes— as also the 'long-jaw' (Coregonvi hoyi) imd the 'blue fin' (C. msrr»/<Mmiii), all belong to the same group as the true whitefisb, indeed the term leaser whitefishes should be applied to these species, which have all the characters of true salmonoids, and not one feature, except size and silvery brightness, to entitle them to be called clupeoicls or herrings. In other words the term herring is in the highest degree erroneous and misleading. A similar case is that of the so-called shad in many inland waters of Canada. The prooess is, however, the reverse of that just referred to. The shad is a true clupeoid— a typical member of the herring family, though larger than the familiar Clupea harengu» and reaching a weight of no less than four to six pounds— the average being one or two pounds. The name has long been appli'<i or mis-applied to certain varieties of true whiteflsh in some localities. Thus in I^ake Champlain and Memphremagog the fishermen for years have made catehe* of what they called shad, but which proved to be true whitetish, of the smaller elongated species known as Coregonut quadrUateralu. Official statistics have long recorded catches of shad in these inland lakes of Eastern Canada ; but they have been demonstrated to be really catches of whiteflsh.* These catches, it may be added were made in November, the close season for whitefish ; but being regarded aa shad, the law wa.s never applie<l, and the fish were thus destroyed in the November spawning season. The term shad is miupplied in Lake Ontario — being there used to signify a small and worthless clupeoid, which dies mysteriously in vast schools every summer. .Mr. A. Nelson Cheney, State Fish Culturist for the state of New York, writes of this fish ' It is abundant along the Atlantic coast, entering streams to spawn, and also found in the interior lakes of this state, where it is scientifically known aa variety J(v<igtri». The name saw-belly is given to it in Lake Ontario and the St. Law- rence, and, I think, in Lake Cayuga, where it swarms and where great multitudes die every year in early summer. Fro n the best information obtainable the fish die from a change in the temperature of the water. Coming from the deep cold water of the bottom into the warm surface water, heated by the summer sun, they make a spasmodic movement, turn over and die in such quantities that the surface of the water is covered with them, and it is sometimes a problem to get rid of their decayed and decaying bodies' 'They are very generally called shad along the Canadian shores of fiake Ontario, and "the name is of course wholly inappropriate, as is also a name frequently
"Ur. Hmrt Mfrrism ixniited out in 181*3 that the nhad in Lake Champlain were really whitefiah. Bull. V. S. V. Conim., Vr.l. IV., y. 287.
IT
applied to thcM inwll IkndlookMi gMparMu, ris., inanbadcn, whieh luUDe belonga to • vtry difbrtnt iMiiiber uf the harriog funiljr and thould bn oonflned to Brtvoortia (yniM- nut. The term ihcd ia alio wronglv applied to another olupeoid Dorotoma erptdianum indeed, excepting the tomewhat abeurd name ' Hnirjr-baok,' the foar or five popular namea which are given lo that ipcciea all imply that it i« a Hhad — the ternw in common UM being : gizxam ihad, hickory tliad, mud nhad, and whitoeyed Hhad, whcreau it ia not a ahad at all ; but a largi>-aized member of the herring group, having a hard muwular atomach, derp Imdy, aroall head, and a long hair like projection from the hind border of the duraal Bu, really the laHt bony ray of that ftn. In certain rivera in Louisiana, in which Dr. Rvermann atated that there wait no evidence of the exiatence of any apwiea of truA ahad {Alum), a herring-like apeviea Signalom alehafalaifir ia called hIihiJ by all the ttaherroen. The term ' whiting' which ia really the popular name of a Europtntri flab clooely r«lat«<l to the haddock and cod, and named lladut murlanguB, ia applie<l along th* Canadian ahore to a widely different fiah, viz., the ailver hake (Merluceiun bilinearU) whicli mteinbltM the true whiting in scarcely a single prominent feature. On tha Paoiflo ooiut the name whiting ia aiuiilarly applied to M»rlueriu» prodwlua, while in New York Htate the whiteflah (Cor«gonu$) ia knnwn a* the whitinj^ in man}' localitiea. A aimilar error waa made in the caae of Afnnlieirr/tu* AiiymrttHuii and Afirtieirrhua littoralu neither of which flihe** are in any way allied to the ()adida>, to one of which tho name whiting haa been for centuriea applied.
The term ahad-waiter, though an erroneoua name, ia not iteriouHJy confuaing. It has been adopted in many lakes in Eastern Canada for the Hmall whiteflah Coregontts </iiadrilaleralu, for which the name ahad has been erroneoualy choaen in other plocea as mentioned above. Along the Atlantic coast t.hi- terms horae mackerel and mackerel ahark are applind to the tunny {ThynnHn tliifiinu») both names, having this element of juatili- cation that the tunny is a gigantic and voracious member of the family .Smmbrvd(p the mackerels, but the horse mackerel is in reality Caranx trachuru* the scad or \ mackerel, represented on our shores by Caran.r hippog or Caratu- rryao», and the mackt shark ia Lamita rornubira — known also as the porbeagle shark.
There is less objection to the use of the word loach or loche for the burbot, or freshwater ling, also called the cusk, and the name is confined mainly to the prov- ince of Quel)ec,* no doubt brought by the early French immigrants, who were familiar with a small eel-like Ash, the groundling or stune-loach {XemacfvUHs barlialula) whicli Dr. Day states is known as la to(he fraitehe in France. It is a peculiar specialised little fish, lurking at the bottom of stony brooks and rivers, and rarely exct^din^ five inches in length. The burbot, at a cursory glance, recalls the brown, slimy, eel-like European loach, and la loche was a name instinctively chosen, though, as stated on a later page, the Canadian fish rejoices in no less than fifteen or sixteen more or less inappropriate names ; perhaps the most absurd and unsuitable for this ugly, slimy, dull-coloured, and inactivr fish, is the term trout, which in some localities m the United States boa lieen applied to it. Dr. ,Jordan gives the name of Alekey trout, as one of the i>opuiar names of this voracious fresh-water cod, or rather ling, {Lota macnlona) which some old authority, it is reconied, pronounced to be a hybrid between an eel and a trout.
A fourth mode of false nomenclature is that of the adoption of names already ap- propriated and universally accepted for certain fish and their application toother wholly different fish ; some fancied justification being found in the habits, the form or the teeth of the fish. Thus the word ' pike ' has become venerable as the distinguishing name for the Esocida-, yet the term pike, usually qualified by the word 'yellow,' or 'blue,' is very generally applied to fishes more closely related to the perch family, indeed the long-used scientific name Lurto-perca, or pike-perch, was an appropriate and descriptive one. In Canada these fish, of which there are at least three species in the Dominion, are called pickerel, and the yellow species, or American Sandre, (Stizottedium vitreum), is called dore in Quebec, and indeed amongst French-Canadians generally. The sauger, or Canadian sandre, also called blue pickerel (StizMledium canaderue) is often called blue pike by United States fishermen and sportsmen, who also distinguish both species as wall-eyed pike. Similar confusion has arisen in relation to the word ' pickerel,'
The name lush or loche, is in uae in Alaska. E. B. P — 2
Il
r
• •«»" 'P^rfw (or ■awll MMi
UnlUd HutM ».™» , »»M<i pike (iiMi.,) u
Bbwt of Um JW
^JM<*^».or pik^Kh; bat in th* fcmJIy. Mr. A. N. Ch«i,,, whooT^
tar. alfMdjr had rMuon to qootv, tuM wriit^^^lZVJ "'■.^' ^" '-■"••r. "bom I fuioo of th. nuM. • pik.,' "pUW- IT «Si 7^ ^' ■»*? *'»'■ '«'••«'«'» of til. ooo. ' In N.W York But; tb; JK Zu«t * /tSuI TJIIIl! «*"? *"• 7."^ »» '•»«»»»^
ov.r to,i.p.nit. th. pik^ the pirk.r.lMd uT. LJi.Z. u'^'":. ' ^•'^ ^'^'d «»•' •nd rt^n why I refer ^itato th. "DteK" i! fl^T^'*'^ ^'. ^^^bing th.m, .od th. •ppHction. m.d. toTh. FcSt. F^h ^ 0.1 C '^•"'^- '*^.*' "'"■ * '"» "^ «S Mked for. .„d with on. «Xtion I <Soo^dS t^TTK '" •^'?'' "P'"''''"' " "•" the pik. Th.8ut.do<« notpVVteXof th.St. # .^VP}}^1 rwlly wUh«l hut It doe* propMatc th. nikZltUk ^j . "?" P'"* '"""'y. but the niMkinonin • picket! on ocSII^rbut'*2w':Jr^l' ^h'* S^- ^''^^^ 'H. pik. 'JS.' Picker.1 .r,. di.tribiit«l in State waton. t^ nl^^J *"• !* •«'"'''•«» wh.n pik. or Urai to other fl,h, and ib.t inSi. tW „^J ?^ "T" "^'^ "»••« th.r will do no
water th. State will not fSiirthei^iSrin;* '^V,'* P/^T' •- "^'-^y '" ^h^ •re procured only when netting inland UkRr other fl.h*"'*/!^"'*' '"' ''»»ributioB pike tnbe we™ taken. They ,4 b.h.tXd !!.;«• n "•''•"r *'"' ^' "O"' "f the |t i. not n.c^ry. for th.y^.rp.rh.rth^™:^f •ji&r^.'r'^'^l'' '" "•"»'"»y- ^at h»ve hnlf a chai.c. during the Ln^ZL / ^ for their eggn to hatch, and if thev their number, in a pond^o iake^ut fh^Tv^ 1 '"^'^ *''i "«^'"- """«ri*"r "^"^ .pear and fcun when they run into the «hilln 7^' '•**" '^* '"•'•'' '"^ ^^e man wkh B<.rn. told „,e of pmp.K.ti"J the oik. and thL M ^^ 'P'*"" '^*"' '«'• Count von dem how the pik. fry LrU thi^ujh imo the JL ::J,'rnd" ' H r "il!""-^ - Uennany, and fore he knew of the roinglinR of the finhM T h. ^ ""'^ '""^ "" »*'" '««• '^Z h^
that had been living on black ba,« f™ Vej^hJ^ J? ^r"*'"' '~'" '"*«'>*•'» »'-« pike Mventeen inches long.' "^ ''•'«'"^ wmething over two poundS, and were
th«till?er„'on.TL"r"ia''„"^^^^ --- *« North American fish i«
either already app-prill 'ft'wriM tt'^h't ""^' ^ -™«
•ppropriatenes. or utility. It i« surnrisinl h^^ ' "'"'^ •'*^"*^ «""«•«• without .... Imnnful, and even cul, Jl |, .3 of '^chr."*"^ «.«., may be f nd of thi. errat"o ' sHlmon.' or usually .jack.ialn;„,?u,H ^TV'^'' tor a.b^. Thu. the term I;.. k..rel or th. walleyed pike. The Zor of th." ^'•"'"'"PP', "r*"" '"■• '»■« Canadian that great attention h,u Ln paid ■£ the State F IT ^'^'•'' <''""*' '«»«> "'"'^d the county acljacent to St. I^miM) to the n.!.,. .• . J-omrawsioner of that section jack-salmon., while in Peaniyfia if ^S** 'he".S '""^ PlI'^P*''^'' locally called the the word -trout' i.s applied to the lanje mTu hed h.ltT"''*'*,""* *''""'"' ^'"""'y •n Honda and most of the southern states K. *h^^' °'^.'' "'"'^ ""'"'K" »«« probably the striped b^. Frequc^ntlv the „i^ . *'** ■PP"*^ »« *»>« »«» »««,
W. as though to reconcile theT>rtluVn to r/„^^''*" '/"!!* '" «*""" ^ ^h" S oould hardly he mistaken by theTeS oTirvl^^ T"^ "^"'•' ^""' '"^ « g"^" fout b..au.y of northern waters.^ The btck C hL^ *'"" 'j'^^''^' "''»'>y-'i''t^ "peckled the way of inappropriau> naming, for the 7^riZ7„' T'^.r" "TJ^ ""It-^'tnTent in tha there is no lUh, not excfptinVthe cT.mell;^? u^''""'"' ^'^^^^ P" *^^' *»"" »» variation than the black has. of both sp^i^ ^"^^ '"*"*' »''"* "f""*" greater
mow bass, black perch, yellow perch. blickTront „,:«„ f""? 1* *'^? ^"^ y«"°'' »»«.
'Welshman.' when for the use of intelli~nt n^^i I '"'*"'"»^''*' »"«' ''«"«»' «•">« and in most civilized reiriona it i, ik *^ P^^P'" **" "■»• '•>'«'k bass is available •Dutchman is ap^TieSTt ^EnglUh tlTorT"""^* '^"P'"'- ^'"'•l-i 'hTS Asam it is diffl.alt'^to ».e what ra£n.l Z„„d E i" * ^ ««-r'kill waters
trout to a member of the caq, f.mO^ reSTv !lh .h "^".^ ''"" "PP'^'"* *»>e nam.
«~)thec^i„.hiaRiv.7chub.^6;St'v„;t;^-,':,l%r„t^^^^^
19
«M|ht •ad Mll«d troat al»«t univtndljr Inr Um lowl pMpI*. It i. „Jd that thw
. » j^ ^^i^ unjiirtllUbl. i« the onitom oi calling «iioth«r oyprinoid, tb* •m.11 mud.^nnow. Vmbrali^ b^ th- nan. dog.fl.h— f rm .pP'W miit oommonW to o.rUln .m«lln,eBb.w of the tUrk tribe, but ^ gi^en to the B.,w.fl„ or Mud«.h fl!:i:^l '^""- il^ ^•*? f''* »**" *'"' "»« '"•^y"'.' • ri»'inction which hS irt^iiir" "" "" •"'' ^^' ^^'"''''^ ""•" *" **»• »'>«'bot or frllh-
A «ixth mode of naioing fi.h to which there i. every re«i„n to object ia that of patting m c.roulai.on » new nam. in plaoe of an old and univernally kniwn n,me for •ome ronipar»uv,.ly trivial and 'inMientitio reaun. Tl.. nio.t Hagrant cam of thia evil oour«, ., found ,„ the n...,. very often given to the original brook t,t,ut or .potted tmut
called Von ttehr trout, a name wholly unknown in anv oth/r country, and wholly hit propria^. Kven w eminent an authority a. Dr. Jordan .peak, of Salmo /ario \m t£ Von IJehr or brown trout, neither of which name. a» oo.imonly applied to it in ao^ «.un.ry in which the fl.h i. indigenous. Mr. Living.ton Stone, in a fiper on American M-h Guitar*, two or thr«, year. ago. thu. .poke of the r«««>n for Sg the common brook trou of Kurope by the name of a Oerinan fi.h culturist. and urge. .Sme con.idri^ tion. in order Uj ju-tify the policy. He nay* :— » ' tunaiui-ra-
'It W.W the writer', privilege to cirry on a delightful corrwpondenc with Herr von Behr for «,veral year., ftroppmg all o.« • fonm and. in.leed. all formality whatever, hi. letter, were earnent. conti.lential, and - of enthusia..,,. They expr«.H«| the .«me ov,. and adnuration for P.otWsor Baird tl .. American, felt for him at home, an.l nev"r lacked lu .-xpression. of hi. great admiration of An.eric n fi.h-culture. They al»o record hi. sad domestic Weavement.. and t<,ld how, after the |.m« of his three nons. he had re-olved to devote the remainder of hi. life to the cause of flsh-.ulture in (Jermanv I am aware that much criticinm has Im«:i .-xpre^^ed becauw Von Jtehr'H name ha." been given by An.encan. to a European trout nince iu introcluction into this country • but whatever nay 1* *«id of the judinou.ne-, of the act. no one can deny that it wr. fitt..,g t-om^iiment to a man who richly deserved the honour, nor can any one deny that It rertec t. credit on the kindly feeling which nought in tl.i. way to rrco«„ixe Amcrca, .ndel.t,.ln..s» to Von Behr. and f. i^rpctuate in America the name of the di.t nguChed <«erman hili-cultuiist. ""guioncu
A parallel ca«- .Kicurred in Canada. M.me year. ai;,.. when an effort was mad.- to per|«tuate the name of a pioneer fish cult u.iHt of th.. Dominion viz.:-the late .Mr S >\ ilmot. I he name Wilmot s salmon was applied to the salmon which formerly .K;curred in somo abundance m Like Ontario ; but i> now practically extinct. '. he fish it ha^ been agreed, .hffeml in no structural re.peci from the *ea salmon (SaUo .alar) and th^ name W ilmot s salmon never attained any .urrency and ri-htiv so. As a matter of fact records .show that these I^ke Ontario sa,„.on were prior to the middle r.f the present
but al„ ut 18.,o It I, reported that only a seamy re.nnant existed, destructive poaching especiully merciless slaughter on the sp.wnin. grounds, chieHy small shallow creeks and steam, had .lecimate.1 them. In lt<65. says an otficial re'port, the scanty remnant referred to were snatched trom extinction through the efforts of the Fishery Departn.cnt This remnant was afu-rwards utilized by Mr. Wilmot. who conceive.-! the idea of restocking the stream by artificial reproduction. His initial experiments, purely of an individual character, were prosecuted during two years under much out-side difficult? and at very considerable personal lal«ur and expense. They were, however, successful es abhshing the important fact that salmon e^rgs coul.l be hatchevl out. there and the young fish reared through proper means and intelligent cnre. Aided to a very limited exten in the following yean, by the government, Mr. Wilmot persevered and he wa. able to exhibit upwards of 140 000 well sl.apen, healthy and active salmon fry from three-fourths of an inch to one and a half inches long, and fully capable of be^g f^ and reared to that stage of vigour and growth when naturally they w^ld emigrate from their native stream and return as adolescent salmon. It was officially stated that these fry were no hybnds-no doubtful or inferior members of the «»lmon famS-but ^
B. K. P.— 2J
20
thorough progeny of the true salmon (Sa/mo mlar) which form «o valuable a product t/tv i^an^ ^^'^''t'"""'- fl^hingH in other parUi of the Dominion 'TbeKen whih l '^=«^**'"fl certamty,' my^ the orticial report, • in spit* of a Houbt which 8 known to exiHt ,n the mind, of n.any persons, and demonstrating that the^m-
STtL a7e"nt;o„ (>il'r' ""''r ''" -^'J-' °^ **« increased producLnworth^ of h^^nfoMSfifi' h • ' ""■-'•" 'f'l' ""'■'^^ twoyear-old salmon, of the experimental hatching of 1866, having revisited the creek in the fall of 1868, are actual oroirenito™ IC ? 'he present large hatch of salmon fry. The female gn^set not Zwn^ propaga e on her hrst migration fiom sea, but the male does. The few fuH grownlL^ fish. M,a e and female, which were last autumn accompanied by the larse ^umW of
o^-iTair^hri-nTZgirs"^'^"^
atedbl''tl!ruti"virw!i*''' :^'.'"-'-=^*° r'-e tho*, in .he private esUblishment inaugur- ated b> the lat« Mr. W ihnot, in winch he carried on for some years fish culture before the Domunon government to.,k up the work, when the buildings were tran.sferrwl t^ the Department ,.f Marme and Fisheries, ar.d .i.sl.-hreeding has bet^n carried ori«re until he present tune. No doul.t Ihis special effort on the part of a privateTn.Hvidua «ave th. t .nd.v.du„| ,n the eves of some j,eopIe, the right to confer L o,^ ia^Vul „ them but the ,.nnc,ple is one which has „o claim to approval on «eneral grounds aX, ere is
IS one, II , ret ore, which could not by any means be ustified or j;ain currency That vf., orousan.l enthusiastic fish authority, the lat. Fred Mather, exp^ssed h^Sthu s clea f; on Ins appl.catK.n o, personal names U> fish. ■! find frequent reference' he irote^
r^ut^'^'u.et'.n'ted'^t. e1^\r P^"'«^* "«-,-' »'- — ' that name fc!; the brrn trout .... the t nte<l htates t ish Commissioner has seen fit U. ignore the name brown trout which , as the original importer, I have the right U, give, and has called it 'Ton I^k;
hl^eVn " d"'""" T "'" '"''■: '"i^' '^'"^ "«^'» claii'nedbv t?.e in^port^l,/! foreign tt he.e u iged may he .,uest,oned ; but it is certain that so long as the name Von Hehr tmut IS used by fishery authorities on this western continent, their^br^threnTother lands wil not know to what fish they refer. Certainly the name will never be recogniS SopTw^ in any other country on the face of the earth. Quite a nun.lier of fishfrvlxperts hl^ felt the .nap,,r.,prm eness which the selection of an unknown name for a well known
Chenenhr T \" ^"''"1!"" 'L " '" '='''""«'^"' '*"d intelligibility and MA "" Chene.v thu,s strongly pkces himself on record in a recent is.sue'^'of For^st^a
'i-V years I have inveighed against the use of the terra German brown trout because ,t was absolutely inipro,M,r. As well call our native bio^ktLlCS
o^Tl^'Tte^narr' Ov'er ''■""? trout l^cause they happened to crrfl^e^iher .states named Over and over I have written that the brown trout is the
rr:.a"M T; "■" V^ '^"■'r- ^" •■"""'"'y -^ ^ '^*'"«' •'ns.k trout a„d I. ( e" l ita^^n name e Z': .Took? ?"';"' "'""^ "iT '''"'"''''"' "^ »'"e Germane;;::;""
moT;, . 1 . , ""•■ "* ""'■ "*"• h"t we can call it by its English com-
wounded in the house of ,ny friends, as well assublx-d in mv viZ, Tt 1 \ 7 . misbul ot the otlender from the service of the State '
ent, mtioduoed into the Lmted atat.,s, New Zealand. South Africa, India, Jtc. In Qer-
ai
many the fish is ca led Bachfordle (brook trout). Dr. Day, in ' Brituh and Irish Sal- n.on.d«,' persistently writes it down brook troit ; but a. I', have a brook tlt^J o^r own we cannot «lopt the translation of the German name which D^y seems to prefer In England the fish w generally called the common trout, although U sometiaes'^S by other naines^ Th.s ,s particulariy true in Scotland. The name German trout te«me at tached to the European trout from the fact that the fii^t egRg of this ^oe^Z^^^Z,
Tn^bTDr- : P-Sh't'''''.^ ^''*rr " P--^"*"^ ^ the^nlLJstr 'ri;hS.mmS n .^. f* • rr"*!"' °* '*'" '^^^"'"" ri^hf^Tien Association, and were taken
f^ZV^K !*'■'• "''*"'"/*' " P"'*'* ^"^ ^'•««J" i" Massachusetts had prevS
i^.^1 .^T" *"""« l^*" ^«>«>,E°«''"'d- The United States Fish Commission. outS courtesy to Dr. von Behr, „arae<l the fish von Behr trout, but in New York Su.e the Fisheries Game and Forest Commission adhere to the English nume brown trout and under th.s name it .s hatched and distributed in some of the public wa^7s of the
Lastly, there is the methotl, too oomn.only a.lopted, of conferring a great variety of names upon one hs , instea,! of adhering to a single, generally accepled^ame. Thero riay bc-un element of appropriateness in each of the names as in the term 'smer wh ch IS applied on many lakes in New York State to a lesser whitefish, whos" sSc distinctiveness was brst noticed by that able and gifted fishery expert, Dr. H.M. S^tt Dr. Smith called xl Core.gonuH osmer.fnrn.i., (now called Aryyro.omu. o,.n.rilhr,nis) the Xh ,1 """' U '=*:,'°f .'•^f«'--'«* ^o the smelt-like character of its e.xternal appearance Both the smelt and this les-er whitefisl. belong to the same family (.V«/„»,„u/< ana the misnaming. ,s certainly not so outrageous as calling the whitelish a Ik.ss a pracMee on son,e waters in New York State: the term • Otse^^o Ba,s ' being inos. uniusS y applied U, the lake whitefi.h. The name smelt is also given to NolropisTloTo^^l
name Mullet, which really belongs to a family having most of the charactere of the perch, VIZ., the M„gd-lo (applied likewise to the Sunnullets or .»/«//J') h^s been c.,nterred m many localities to momliers of the carp family, from which they wholly differ The nmllets are marine hshes, though .some of them come into brackish water The chub^ sucker {kr,,ninon sucetia) is called mullet in North Carolina, v.hile in Ontario the JW o.^>,«,. or large scaled suckei^, are calle<l mullets, e.g. white mullet, J/. ,«,„///„;„l • bluemullet l/.,v,,.yo„„«; jumping mullet, J/. c.nn„,««, carp mullet, m' arZ l^ simply mullet, M. anre.>lur,. Tl.ero is probably no case, how'ever. which for variety of popular names can excel that freshwater (ia.loid. Lota maclosa, which rejoices in at least fifteen distinct names. It is calle.l the burbot, the fresh-water ling, (t oXtiiJuish It from the sea ling), the losh or loche in Quebec and Alaska, the eel j«^ut in Ste „ Canada and some Eastern States, the dog fi.sh in I^ke Erie, the 'chub eel ' in .Chawk R.ver, New York Sut«; the -frosh-water cusk ' in St. John Jtiver, N.iJ; 'th. K and lawyer in Lakes Ontario and Michigan; the ' lake cusk,' and ' fresh'water cod^ of Lake\\i„nip,gf«gee; the 'maria' in Lake Winnipeg; the 'methy,by the Cree Indians, and ee y^^t 'in many districts, and the ' mathemeg ' in some western are^ It >«aU^ called 'spotted burbot,' but, as Pi„fe,s.sor Kamsay Wright some years a«o suggested, the name American burbot is at once most distinctive and appropriate and shou d supplant all other names. Only one species is recognized by experts, though a small species was at one time na.ned and distinguishes! as Lota ,om,n-eZ, the Wr eel polity Amongst the French Canadians the same lack of uniformity exists for M Mo tpetit
LThr' ;r .* ^" "^T^T' •'™"'='''^ ^^ ^"^^"""•«*' aPPe'lent impiopremont fe poCn h.^h>che ; a Qu.'bec on lu. donne tant,U le nom de queue d'anguillt, tantot oelui de bar
„..,>«". ^''*"i- """"'*"""/ °^*?'" "^^arding the naming or misnaming of this fish, a cor- responding diversity of opinion exists regarding its eclihle qualities.. At a remote Hud- son Bay post, in the Canadian North-west, I found that the flesh w.^^ TgaSeS as poisonous, indeed, cases of poisoning after Indians and employees of the post had eaten
Th« I/'™ '""'rr^' '"'^J' ^'".r*"'"^ ""^ ^'"'^ «*•«" 'he dogs would noTeatIt The dog3 are usually fed on the excellent whit«fish and deehne bring put off with inferior tare, and it is a fact pointed out by various explorers that the doys of the North-west used m the dog-trams, refuse to ee,t the burbot. I found, however, at another Hudson
'22
Bay post, that the fish was oftrn eaten and was regarded as most excellent, no ill e/Tect* bavin); been noticed. Belonging as it doen to the cod family, it should be an excellent fish for the table, like its near relatives the cod, haddock and bake. In one of the lakes in New York State, (Lake Winnipireogee) it is pronounced equal to the whitetish for table use, and the liver is generally considered a rare delicacy.
Dr. Hicbardson {FautM Borwli Amtrieana) is reconled to have said that ' the flesh of the frexb-water cukW is finn, white, and of good flavour ; the liver and roe are consi- dered delicacies, when well-bruised and mixed with a little flour, the roe can be baked into very good biscuits, used in the fur cuunirit-s as tea bread.' Professor Brown Ooode spoke of it as a very excellent fisb, especially for boiling, though Dr. T. H. Bean pointed out that apart from the liver, the fiish is not esteemed in the Great Lake region and northward, but in the rivers of Montana the burbot is in great favour.
Perhaps the name ' minnow is more generally applied, or misapplied than any other common popular term in use. When it is remembered that the term < minnow, may on scientific and popular grounds be justitiably applied to small species of Pimp- hales, of which there are at least four kinds, of Leuciscus, twenty-two species ; of Notro- pis, one hundred and three species ; of Fundulus, forty-one species ; of Cyprinfdon, eleven species ; of Oambusia, nine species, >.:'..l of Gastrosteidae at least fourteen species or varieties, or a total of just over two hundred distinct varieties of small fishes, it can be imagined how much uncertainty and confusion is bound to arise when the name minnow instead of being confined to this somewhat numerous group of seven genera, is indiscriminately applied to any small fish if of a minnow-Iik« appearance, whether the young of a well-known large species, or the adult of some small species. Indeed in my own experience I have heard characterized as minnows the young of salmon (that is the parr stage) of black bass, of pike, pike-perch or pickerel, of whitefish and of many other familiar kinds in immature and young stages.
More than one word is scarcely called for on the matter of traders' names or com- mercial names for fish. Such names are not, strictly speaking, popular names at all, and aa a rule are confined to the circle of traders which ha\e adoptied them. They do not mis- lead the public to any great extent, though they often vitiate official statistical records, except in such coses as that of the small immature herrings caught in the Bay of Fundy and along the Atlantic coast, and used chiefly for canning purposes. These small fisb, put up in oil and other liquids, are sent into the markets as sardines. They are not true sardines, but fishermen, dealers and local inhabitants never refer to them as herring. The traps or weirs are called sardine weirs ; the nets, sardine nets ; the fisher- men, sardine tishermen ; and it would be difficult to get into common use any other name than that universally adopted along the shores, viz., sardine. As already pointed out, the danger of such misnomers is that in official reports and statistical returns the information collected may often be misleading unless special care be taken to discrimin- ate between an erroneous local or trade name, and the correct and distinctive name which is in general use. It is plain that if it were open to any one at will to use, say, the term ' dog ' when referring to the horse, and when speaking of cats use the term ' bears,' no one would know what was meant, for not only would confusion result, but far worse, viz.: the spreading of misleading and erroneous statements. Yet, this is pre- cisely what has taken place all over North America in regard to fisb. Well-known names have been misapplied and misused, the same name has been given to fishes placed by naturalists wide apart, and on the other hand a variety of names, really belonging U> diverse fishes have been applied to one fish.
As Dr. W. C. Kendall has pointed out in a paper on the fresh water fishes of Wasthington County, Maine, published in the Bulletin of the U.S. Fish Commission, 1894, vol. XIV., p. 44, that local names are as a rule far from clear, and he gives such apt illus- trations from the part of Maine referred to that I venture to quote the examples which he gives : ' Local names,' he says, ' are always more or less confusing, and they are especial ly so in many instances in Maine, where distinct species in neighboring localities are often known by the same name. The name " chub " is applied indiscriminately to the larger fishes of the family Cyf/rinieUr ; " young chubs " or " shiners " to the intermediate sizes, and " minnies " to the young Cyprinida and to the VypritiodorUido!. The catfish Ameiunu nebtilonu, is known generally as " hornpout," as also in some places in stickle-
23
baolu PygoUnu, Oa»tro§Uu$, and Aptlt«$. Catottomut tertt is commonly designated as " sucker." SemotUut bullarU is widely known as " chub ;" bat the adult Fundtdui hetervditia, in places along the coast, are likewise called "chub," and the young of the same species " minny." ScUvdinui fontiwdii is evenrwhere recognized by the uimes " trout," " brook trout," and " speckled trout," Salvdinus natnayetuh is known as " togue," " lake trout," or " salmon trout ;" Salmo galar $^>ago as landlocked salmon and " salmon trout." The brook-trout when large, also has sometimes been misnamed salmon-trout Salmo solar is commonly known as " salmon" or "sea salmon." '
If the use of popular names is to be anything else than a hindrance and a false guide, some uniform method of popular nomenclature will require to be adopted. The adoption of a cast-iron rule of priority might, ^s in the case of scientific nomenclature in ichthyology, result in the suppression of generally accepted and well-known descrip- tive names and the unearthing of questionable treasures in the shape of uncouth and unknown names from the lumber pile of musty antiquarian ichthyological records. Noraencijture should be a help, not a hindrance, and its terms as far as possible should be descriptive and convey information instead, as is too often the case, of mystifying and beclor iing the intelligent student and inquirer.
14
III.
ACCLIMATIZATION OF FISH. FRKSHWATER AND MARINE.
BY PROFESSOR EDWARD E. i^RINCE, DOMINION COMMISSIONER OF
FISHERIES, OTTAWA.
Fishes are frequently divided into freshwater and salt-water npeciea. though there •re some kinds, like the salmon, shad and eel, which occupy a kind of neutral position • and have the habit of spendini? part of their time in fresh water and part in the sea Those which ascend rivers for spawning purposes, their young hnxnl descending at a sutticienily advanced age to the ocean, are distinguished as "anadromous " or "ascend- ing specie?, while those which have their habitat in fresh water lakes and rivers and nii„'rat« to the sea for spawning purposes, are known as " eatadromous." But while thrae distinguishing names apply accurately enough on the whole, there is abundant evidence that numerous species, which are essentially marine species and neither anadronious nor eatadromous, are able to live in fresh water and vice rerm.
The iH)wer of endurance which enables a marine Hsh to live and grow, and even reproduce in fresh water, or in bra:kish waU-r, is in some species so remarkable as to opten up to the fish-culturist possibilities which hitherto have received little or no atten- tion If waters remote from the sea can be stocked with fine species of fish, normally inhabiting salt-water, the possibility of conferring immense benefits upon the public becomes apparent. The introduction o: new species of fish into various countries, as for example the brook trout of this country into England has been a great succe.s8. Plants and trees in the same way have been distributed. I had for many years been impressed witfi the remarkable adapUbility to new and unaccustomed conditions of certain ^.anadian fishes and it had occurred to me that some of the so-called alkaline or .saline • tfrl!""*^ "S '■""^"'^•■'''''e extent-in the Nonh-west Territories, might Im st .eked with fish capable ot enduring profound changes of environment. I h.id a long conversa- tion in 18!»3 with .Sir John Schultz upon the subject, and as a result. Sir John, at that time Ueutenant-CJovernor of Manitoba, arranged for a discussion of the matter with the Kev. bather Lacom be. I therefore arranged a scheme for introducing certain species of hshes, new to western waters, into the barren and unpromising lakes in the west Various circums tances interfered with the realization of the plan which I devised in detail : but in 1896 an attempt was made, to which I .-eferred in my report upon fish- culture in that year (29th Am. Hep. Dep. Mar. and Fisheries, 1896, pp. 290 and 291) Ihe frost-hsh or tom-cod on account of it* hrirdy nature, habits of spanning and excel- ence as a table fish, appeared specially suited for transference to the barren western lakes, where the conditions are somewhat unfavourable to most kind." of edible fish Few people have any idea of the i.umber of species, which can be safely transferred from their usual habitat to conditions v,..jlly different in many respects. To the fish- culturist, whose work includes the introduction of valuable species, in ad.ilt or immature stages, into new waters, as much as the hatching and rearing of the usual kinds, the lai-t IS of profound importance.
That certain marine shell-fish are able to survive removal from their usual surround-
'^^wj"*! ? ^" ^r*" ,.,^" * P*'*'" ""^ ^''^- '^> 1825, to the Wernerian Society of Edinburgh, Mr. Henry Witham described a bed of sea-cockles tCavdium edule) m existing m a peat moss in Yorkshire at a distance of no !e»s than 40 miles from the sea. The peat-moss w«« about two miles from Greta bridge, and not many miles from the nver lees. The bed of cockles, which were living on the sandy bottom of a channel or drain passug through the peat-moss, had existed for a long period, indeed the adjacent
26
farm wm called Cockletbury in allusion to the oconrrenee of the ahell-fiah. Specimens of the cookies were exhibited »t the nieetiog of the Wernerian Society, and they diCTered in no respect from those occurring on the vast beds of the estuary of the Tees, excepting that on tasting th^ni they were less distinctly salt in flavour. Over a hundred years earlier Mr. John Brand, in his book entitled *A Brief Description of Orkney, Zetland, Caithness, &b.' (Eldinburgb, 1701,) referred to the occurrence of living cockles in the fields more than a mile from the sea. When ploughing the fields, cockles were turned up in numbers and were eaten. Of this remarkable occurrence Mr. Brand wrote : — ' How these sliell-ftshes came there, and should be fed at sik li a distance from their ordinary element, I cannot know, if they have not been cast upon land by a violent storm, much of the ground of this parish, especially what they labour, lying very low, and the sea hath been observed in such storms both to cast out slones and fishes ; or if these cockles have been found in some deep furrow, from which to the sea there hath been a convey- ance by some small stream, \xpoa which the sea bath flowed in stream tides, especially when there is also some storm blowing. If only shells were found such us oysters and the like, the marvel would not be great, seeing such are found upon the tops of high mountain.s, at a greater distance from the sea, which, in all probability, have been there since the universal deluge ; but that any shell-fish should be found at some distance from the sea, an'l fit for use, is somewhat wonderful and astonishing.' Hpecimens of the sea-whelk, Buceinum undatitm, have been found in Shetland, living on the margin of a freshwater lake ( on the island of Yell ) about a mile and a half from the sea. The shells weie somewhat thinner in texture than those found on the adjacent rocky coast, and their coloration differs markedly, being very distinctly banded. Miiriy showed the tip fractured, lending support to the theory that crows or water fowl had carried them to the locality, but that they were found living in fresh water, and according to com- petent observers differed from the marine forms in certain features seemed to show that they had long lived in their new surroundings. The lake had an extremely small outlet emptying by a minute rivulet into the sea, and it was practically unafleoted by the tides. The well known Scottish geologist, the lute Dr. John MacCulloch, .suggested to ■ ' resident on the Isle of Guernsey, viz., Mr. Arnold, that experiments, in the acclimatiz- ation of many species of marine animals, might be tried in a closed -wnd about four acres in extent, and separated from the sea only by an embankment. The inflow of fresh water (non-saline that is to say) was very deficient 'n summer, but abundant in winter, hence it was nearly fresh in winter, very salt in summer anil brackish in varying degrees at intermediate periods. The experiment which was tried, was not therefore conclusive in establishing the permanence » f the adaptiliility of the creatures tested, to freshwater condition.s, yet a variety of sea fishes as well as crabs, shrimps, oysters, and mussels, survived in health and vitality. The test was, however, not decisive as to the possibility of keeping these creatures alive at a distance from the sea and in water which was invariably fresh. That oysters can endure transference to water, not merely brack- ish but almost destitute of salinity, has been demonstrated. They do not breed under such conditions, nor do they maintain a fully healthy state, thoufjli they may fatten and increase in size.
From an economic standpoint the acclimatization in fresh water of fishes wholly or partially murine is, however, of prime importance. Th»t a lish, like the salmon, which habitually spends much of its life distant from the sea, should either naturally or under circumstances artificially devised, take to a purely fresh water existence is not surprisins. The ouananiohe or land-locked-salmon of eastern Canadian waters is a familiar ex- ample. No doubt the land-locked species of salmon found in certain lakes in M:iine, U, S. A., and in Chamcook and other lakes in New Brunswick, has acquired the habit of remaining permanently in fresh water, owing, as i-> the case also of Lsko St. John in Quebec, to certain physical difficulties which may have at one time existed in the way of admitting free migration to and from tiie sea. The experiment has been tried of retaining the fry of sea-salmon in fresh water ponds and lakes with a view of originating a non-seagoing variety, but with no satisfactory success, so far as has been demonstr; ted. ' Perhaps the earliest attempt, at any rate, one of the earliest attempts artificially to raise a land-locked variety of the sea salmon was that made in Lier, in the south of Norway. A quantity of salmoc. fry were in the year 1857 put in a small fresh
90
w*ter pond. Their growth wm fonnd to be ilow, for after m period of five jeara, ther had only Atuined a weight of 1| Iba : less than one tenth the weight normally reached by the migratory salmon In the same year 2,000 salmon and sea-trout fry were placed in two lakcH in Luardal, Lower Thelemarken, and the experiment proved somewhat more satis- factory than the initial attempt at Lier. In 1862 rame of the salmon were found to weigh 3} to 5 lbs. each, while the sea-trout averaged half that weight. At a later date an experiment near Throndhjem, and another near Cbristiania resulted in salnjon weigh- ing frt-m 2J to 8 and 9 lbs. While the experimenters found that growth is more Urd y than u the cote with those having access to the salt water, yet the maximum growth seems to be largely influenced by the size of the waters. The larijer the lake the speedier tlieir growth. In small ponds the experiment proved no very marked success. Even in large inland seas, like Lake Huron, the late .Mr. 8. Wilmot sUted that he found them somewhat stunted. ' I took the eggs of Salmo mlar, impregnated them, hatched them and took them up into the rivers running into Lake Huron,' said Mr. Wilmot in 1883, and to day some of the true Salmo saiar are found in Lake Huron, though smaller than those found along the coast.' The Lake Wernem salmon in Norway are said in sizH and every other feature lo etjual if not rival the sea-salmon (see Day, Brituh Sal- mouuifr, p. 104.) Sir James Maitland in Mar., 1881, hatched fry from the eggs of sea- salmon, and kept some of the brood until 1884 when he took eggs and milt from them and m Mar., 1885, produced young salmon from small parent fish (smolu) which had never been to the sea. In 1886 some of these young fish were 5i in. long as Dr. Day has recordetl. '
Apart from the influence of the water, its salinity and chemical character, there are other conditions which must also be taken into account. The area, depth and geolo- gical character, and above all the fauna have a potent influence. The last is but another name for the food-supply, and of the influence of that, Mr. J. Harvie-Brown of Dunipace (Scotland), has given to the scientific world a remarkable instance. Mr. Brown says : —
I " I put a J lb trout, along with others, into a previously barren loch, in two years
some of these trout attained to 4 J lb. weight, developed huge fins and square or rounded taiK loot all spots, took on a coat of dark slime, grew huge teeth, and became >roce« in that short time. The common burn trout, taken from a very high rocky burn up in the hills, in two years became indistinguishable from Stdmo/erox. The first year they grew U> about I II.. or \\ lb., took on a bright silvery sheen of scales, were deep and high shouldered, lusty and powerful, more resembling Lochleven trout than any others. This was when their feeding and condition were at ti.eir best ; but as food decreased, and they rapidly increased in number, spawning in innumerable quantities, and with no enemies, the larger tish began to prey on the smaller, grew big teeth, swam deep and lost colour, grew large fins and a big head, and became Salvw ftrox so-called. In two years more the food supply became exhausted, and now the chain of lochs holds nothing but huge, lanky, kelty-looking fish and swarms of diminutive ' black nebs,' neither of the sorts de-erving of the anglers notice. The first year they were splendid fish— rich and fat. Now they are dry and tasteless."
Dr. Barfurth ascertained that when migratory fish ascend into fresh water and find no suitable spawning ground they refuse to shed their ova, and an anatomical examina- tion showed that ovarian disease had resulted, and the eggs had degenerated. Certain marine tish, for example, flounders, have been noticed iu an egg-bound condition, due to some physiological cause, and the specimens were found to grow sick and ultimately they died. Dr. Barfurth reported that in the case of trout, which were prevented from spawning, the ovaries not only became diseased, but the eggs and brood of the same tish in the following season were very inferior, and had been aflTected detrimentally. It was this lonsiderstion which compelled me to withhold approval of the plan, inaugurated in Canada by the lata Mr. 8. Wilmot, of retaining parent salmon in sea-water ponds long after they should naturally have reached the upper waters, where the spawning beds are locatwl. In mmt cases the land-locked salmon, those that is to say which became land- locked naturally, can descend to the sea. There is no insuperable obstacle in the way of their descent to the ocean. The- ouananiche of Lake St. John, in the province of Quebec, are occasionally found in the Saguenay river, far below the Grande D^harge,
97
And the variety of Halmon, evidently a land-locked variety, similar to the onananidie, and found in Crand Lake, L»ke Onawa, and the head waters generally of the St. Croix river, on the borderland of New Brunswick and the sta'e of Maine, can also readily deeoend to the oea, if they d«sire U» do so. The famous fish-culturist, Mr. Charles O. Atkins, once said of the land-locked saluion in Maine, U.S.A., ' it is likely that it haa ■ometini>-s occurred to stray individuals to rtencend the St. Croix river, or the Presump- scot to the sea.' The catadrouiuuit habit however, seems to have been lost, larf(ely, no doubt, owin;; to the abundance of food, especially tne dainty land-locked smelt, which is plentiful ill moHt lake.-* inhabited by noumigratory salmon. Specimens which do descend such H river as the Sa^uenay cannot readily return, but this difficulty of return does not apply to knd-li>cked salmon waters generally. It is possible, as already indicated, that the non-seagoiniE habit was assumed when the physiographic conditions were different. A slight geological elevation or subsidence in the St. Croix river basin would very much alter the means of acce.<<s to the sea from inland lakes, and some such changes may have bt-en effected, while we know that the basin of the Saguenay is gfologically a most remarkable one. The late Mr. Wilmot spoke on this matter in London, in 1883, and re- marked : — It might be said, how could the salmon in Lake Ontario be said to be land' locked when the St. I.awrence emptied that lake into tfac!<ea ? Salmon were feeders in the sea and breeders in fresh-water ; they migrated annually to the rivers to repro- duce. When they were abundant in the waters of the gulf, they passed up the St. Law- rence, entering every stream on either side up into Lake Ontario ; and were it not for the great barrier of Niagara Kalis the xalmon would be found in the upper springs of Lake Superior. It was their instinct to go onward and onward until they found a suit- able spot for spawning, and they would have pwsed into Lake Erie and Lake .Superior, the same as Lake Ontario, were it not for the falls ; the consequence was they entered into the smaller streams which fed the lake and went buck into Lake Ontario instead of into the sea, where they had remained up to the present time, as the true sea-salmon only acclimatized to fresh-water.
It appears to be wholly different with the large Pacific salmon, known as the spring salmon or quinnat (Oncorhynchus quinnat). The California State Fisheries Commis- iioncrs, in their report 1876-77, quoted in the report of the U.S. Commissioner of Fisheries, l.s78 (Washington., i88C>, state of this fish that it readily adapts itself to a life in fresh water, and reproduces its kind where it has no opportunity to go to the ocean. When the dams were constructed on the small streams that go to make the reservoirs of San Andreas and Pillarcitos — which supply the ciiy of San Francisco with water — as also when the <lam was constructed on the San Leandro, to supply the city of Oakland, the young of the salmon that had spawned the year previous to the erection of these dams remained in the reservoirs and grew to weigh, fre()uently, a-s much as ten pounds ; these reproduced until the reservoirs have been stocked. As the supply of fish increased the quantities of food lessened, so that the salmon have gradually decreased in weight until now, after nine years, they do not average more than two pounds. From the fact that, when food was in abundance, they grew to weigh from eight to twelve pounds, and that, as they increased in numbers, they averaged lei's in size, but still continued to spawn and produce young fish, it would seem that the Sacramento salmon may be successfully introduced into large lakes in the interior of the continent, where, in consequence of dams or other obstructions, they would be prevented from reaching the ocean. The history of this fish in these small reservoirs shows that all that is requisite for their successful increase is the abundant supply of food, to be '"und in large bodies of fresh water. Salmon, fully mature, weighirg two pounds, and tilled with ripe eggs, were taken, in September, 1877, in the waters of San T^eandro reservoir. These fish were hatched in the stream which supplies the reservoir, and by no possibility have ever been to the ocean. The San Leandro is a coast stream, not exceeding fifteen miles in length, and empties into the Bay of San Francisco. It contains water in the winter and spring, at which time, befcre the reservoir was constructed, the salmon ■ought its sources for the purpose of spawning. There was never sutUcient water in the months of August or September to permit the fish to reach their spawning grounds. After the construction of the reservoir, large numbers of the salmon that came in from the ocean in January and February were caught at the foot of the dam and transported
38
•live and placed in the raeervoir above. The daMendenU of theie fbh thoa deUinpd in freeh water and not permitted to ro to the ocean, have ao far modified the habiu of their anoeatora that they now spawn in September, inatead of in Januarv and Febmary Inaamooh ai theae-Aah spawn in the MoCloud, in the headwaten of the Saoramento! and at the sources of the San Joaquin, in the Sierra Nevada, in September, and in short coast range rivers in Jauuary and Febru*ry, and as, when changed to other waters, their eggs ripen at a time when the conditions of their new homes are most 'v*°"r*''!* "'■ reproduction, they show a plastic adnptebility, looking to their future dutnbution, of much practical, as well as scientiflc, importance.
ThU large Pacific salmon, unlike the true or Atlantic saJmon, can endure a very high temperature— indeed it is stated to ascend rivers in Califoinia, the water in which IS no less than 70° F. The colder waters of the eastern sea-board would indeed appear to be less favourable, as there in no clear evidence that any adequate n-sulU, indeed any results at all have followed the planting of quinnat salmon in the waters of Ontario and the maritime provinces. The retention of young salmon in restricted waters such as Parkers Lake near Campbellton, X.B.. in the Restigouche basin, and at the pond clMe by the salmon hatchery at Tadoussac, P.Q , has not had satisfactory resulu. The fish seem dwarfed and never reach more than a third of their usual growth, while there 19 no evidence that they breed at all. The species of Clupeoid found in Lake Ontario and erroneously called shad, though it i» really not distinguishable except in size from the (.aspeieau or Alewife, which migrates up rivers from the sea in the maritime pro- yjneeH, is supposed not to be native to the interior wnters. If artificially introduced it is now thoroughly established and has become ex treraelv abundant. It is said to spawn in Hprin« in inshore shall. nv», and vast schools of theiii 'die and are strande-l on the lake shore, causing great annoyance to the resiaonts. The- accumulate in some seasons in decay.ng masses, fouling the water ami polluting the air. It has been ai,;ued that this extraordinary mortality is due to the difficulty of readily descending to the sea, which the Gaspeieau along the sea-coasts can easily accomplish. Probably that is not the explanation of the fatal epidemic which occurs every summer. Of a great variety of fashes It cannot be s:ii<l that change of habitat from salt to fresh water, or vice versa, has had any such serious effects >is that just detailed. Many species voluntarily appear to make the elmnse and suffer no appaient inconvenience, others have found themselves involuntarily in their new environment, and become thoroughly acclimatised, while others have In^n transferred artificially by man, and havn flourished under the change.
There is no well established case of a marine species of shark or dogfish taking per- ?!fd-^" V '" fresh-water, except one instance recorded in the Amxrican Angler, March, k- /v/o ¥*'■"• P:*^""* Among the strange things told us (savs the narrator) was his (Mr. Kroders) chance meeting with a live saltwater dogfi.-h, about fifteen hundred miles from its natural habitat-the ocean and its estuaries -and the writer quotes Mr. Broder as saying: I saw and handled this dogfish in 1881, near the headwaters of the Bruno river, in Elko county, Nevada, about twelve miles from Mountain City, a mining cimp. I was accompanied at the time by ten vaqueras (cowboys) and a Mexi- can named \ la. These men were working for Mr. Dan Murphy, who at that time was ratetl as the largest land owner in the world, as he owned about two million acres in Mexico and a like amount west of the Rooky Mountains. One of the vaqueros brought the dogfish to me, It having been nearly killed by one of the train wagons when crossing a small stream. I think the fish was following the salmon from the Pacific Ocean up the Bruno river, a distance of at least 1,500 miles.
Sharks are known to ascend the Amazon and other great rivers to considerable dis tances, but not beyond the influence of salt water, while there is a saw-fish {/'rutu per- onelHi)m the Senegal river, and some South American and Indian species of Electric V^ys (Torpedo, Aarctiie, ,i-c.), which are purely fresh water in habitat. A shark (Carc/«.ri<M^anye<i<;7t«) frequents the Ganges and is found nearly :; >0 mi lee from the ocean. In this connection it may be m«,ntioned that of the order nt whales alw three are resident's in fresh water, viz.: the small Platanuta yangetica, which lives in the Oanges, and Irna and Pontoporia, found in the Amazon and South American rivers, and belonjfiog to the (Jrampus and Porpoise family. The Beluga, or large white whale,
39
Moends th« St. L»wrenc« river in ooniiderable sobooli for nMrljr • huDdred Mid fifty mile* from the open im, paining, indeed, up the Haguenay river for (ome diitanoe.
The Hmall gadoid, Mierogadut tomeod, Walbauin, the toui-ood or froiit-flah, a valu- abU little food tish, which vMriea from 4 to 12 inches in length, in capable of enduring great ohangen in regurd to the Halinity of the water in which it lives. It ranges on the Atlantic coast of thin continent from Labrador to Virginia, and is in great request for the Ubie wherever it is found. Though mo dwarfed it in a true coil in all the usual external characteristics, and in its excellence for table uwe. Occurring as it does to so large an extent in braclciHh water, especially iu harboum and about piers and wharfs, it is found to make its way up rivers as far as the liniiU where the water is essentially frenh. Its artiflcial retention in fresh water does not appear to have been attempte<l, nor are there records of Much being aceomplished, as then" are in the ease of the smelt, the Mea-herring, striped liass, Ac. The field open to the fish eulturist in regard to the iicclinmtization of Mpecies of finheM, usually regarded as marine, is a wide and promising one. But much information will be """essary before any successful attempts in this direction can be carried on upon au .tonsive scale. We know how species vary in their powers of endurance, so that it is impossible exc»'p> by exp'jriinent to presuKe the tenacity of life which a particular species may jKissess. Thorenu has said of the catAsh or common bullhead, Ameiunts whuloHun, that Hpeciinens are (miy killed with extreme difficulty, for they have been observed o|iening and shutting their mouths for half an hour after their heads have been cut otf.
Professor Jordan's studies of the fishes in the waters of Yellowstone Park, state of Wyoming, have yielded some quite unexpected results. The alkaline character of the waters, the calcareous and (-iliceouH matters which so strongly impre;;nate the f onds, geyser basins and outlets, and the streams and lakes in that remarkable region of hot springs dovjs not seem to be fatal to fish life, nor is the high teiiip«iature seriously detrimental in » gn-at many coses. In Yellowstone Lake, trout are especially abundant. Dr. Jordan reports about the hot overflow from Lake Oeyser Wasiii. The hot water flows for a time on the surface, and trout may bo taken immediately under these currents. Trout have been known to rise through a scalding hot surface current. They also linger in the neighbourhood of ho springs in the bottom of the lake, and the fact is evident that geyser water does not kill trout. ,In Heart Luke, trout are most plentiful about the mouth of the Wnrm Witch Creek. Suckers and chuhs (L-ucixcnH aliariim) ascend this creek for some distance, although half its water comes from jjeysers and hot springs. The chubs are found in water in which the temperntureis about Hi)' F. Dr. Jordan has published many interesting di'Dails, and I (juote the followinf,' : — The Hot River, which drains the Mammoth Hot Springs, flows into (Jardiner Hiver. Trout alwund about the mouth of this Ktreom, and here, as in numerous other places in the Park, the conven- tional trick of catching a trout in cold, and scalding it in hot water, is possible. Below the mouth of this Hot River young suckers (('a/m/omnn yrueim) were found in ii tem- perature of about 88, ond younj; trout in a tempt-rature of atiout 7.') . The small .Miller's Thumbs abound in the Gibbon River about the hot springs. Three were found Ijoiled in the edge of the river below Elk Park, at the m. ith of a hot tributary. The volume of hot water poured into any river is greatest in tut Firehole, Ih-Iow the upper Geyser Basin. The stream, however, is hardly warm, and the water has little mineral taste, though the abundant vegetation trives it soniethin<; of the flavonr of stewed plants. Even this stream, it » ould seem, is probably not so hot nor so heavily charged with mineral substance as to be unfit for trout Its waters constitute a very dilute alkaline siliceous solution. ♦ ♦ ♦ * There are, however, numerous springs in the Park which discharge sulphurous liquids (some of them the black ammoniac sulphide, being very offensive in odour and doubtless fatal to fishes.) Most of these springs have but a very slight discharge, and so exert no appreciable influence on the streams. The up|>er js^rt of Obsidian Creek between Twin Lakes and Beaver I.rfike is the only running stream noticed as likely to prove uninhabitable by fishes.
Professor Jordan found the red horse sucker (Catostomus ardena) abundant in the warm waters of Witch Creek, while the diminutive Agosia niibila was found in the same heated location. The Utah chub {Leuciaois atrariug) ascends the same creek in great numbers, going up further than any other fishes and being found in water no
30
leM thM) 88* P. Th»i» ojrprinokla ud trout (th« red'hroAt or Rocky MoonUin tftmt) •ndure oonditiong of t«Bper*ture and oheoiioul impuritjr of water under which it would at flnt sight he regarded aa imprubable not to My impoMiible, for them to aurvive. W* know that the fr«M<h water aprcien of trout can all at will Uke to a Mawater habitat and, a* in New Zealand, becuoie ho vaatly chansjrd that a apecialist would hardly reco- gnize the transformed finh as belonging to familiar speciea, yet the young salmon and the young trout cannot for mure than a few second*) endure salt whUt. Indeed in the young larval stages they die very soon after transference to ►alt water— the physical nature of the yolk sack becomeM m> seriously altered. The whole subject is not only one of great biological and physiological interest, it is also of imuiense practical iinporUnco. If the cyprinoids, the saliiionuids, and the gadoids, can furnish exampl(>s of thii transforma- tion of habitat— the exchange of a fresh water life for life in salt water, there is every reason to think that a much larger range of genera will be fouptl U> poueso powers of endurance no Ichs remarkable.
The Bria d'Or Lakes in Cape Breton as is well known are peculiar inclosed lakes of sea water, or rather of water whose salinity is markedly less than that of the sea outside. Lobsters, cod, and other vaii'able marine creature*, are found in these waters, but not in any great abundance. The lulwters are said to be of large dimensions, but by no raenns so numerous as along the shores washed by the oc«>8n. Coi of very large size too are captured, some 56 and 58 lb*, weight having l)een taken in Little Brasd'Ur Lake ; but it has been remarked that the head in these specimens is dispro(>ortionately larxe, as though they were not so well fed as their congenen* in the o|>en sea. Cod indeed occur in all parts of the extensive Bra.s d'Or waters, numbers lieing taken with hook and line through the ice at Whycocomajjh which is at least 50 miles from the sea coast (to the north east), and L'.'j miles from the coast (on the south-east) of Ciipe Breton Island, and the water in some places is utmost fresh.
Only one or two members of the co<l family (Gadidn) aie, howe\er, known to l)e truly fresh water species. All the rest are marint-. The fresK water codfish known as the cu*k, burbot, ling and eel pout, and by many other names, is a typical (iodoid 8om.-wliat resembling the sea lin« Mn/va molva, and ranges from 2J lbs. to 10 lbs. or 12 lbs. thoujjh in extreme north western lakes it \h recorded at 60 ll»s. or 60 lbs. weight An allied form belonging to the hake family (Si'.rliieeiiOr) has been found to forsake the salt water, and in wintei at any rate resort in eimsiderable numl>ers to freshwater. An instance of this is atfordwl by Darling's Lake, near Rotliesiiy, New Brunswick. In this liike, which communicates with the Kennebeccasis River, a considerable branch of the Kiver St. .John, large numbers of silver hnke^Merlneciiu bilinmrk, Mitchill) are caught on hook and line through the ice. This lieing ii salt water fish, its presence in the waters of Darling's Ijike is explained by its habit of following the shoaU of gaspe- reaiix or alewivcs when they ascend in spring from the sea. The true cfsi (findi'M mor- r/ina) is fount! in moderate abundance in the Baltic Sea, the waters of which are of low salinity especially in the \mya and inlets along the shores. Other menil«rs of the family (iu'lifli^ occur there such as the haddock, the ling, the whiting, the pollock and the ;rroen coil ; but none are so numerous as tli.- true cod. As might be surmised, the cod d(«-s not reach the size whi. h it attains in the open sea, rarely exceeding 12 or 15 poutids, whereas in the sjilt water out.side it reaches a weight of .">0 or 60 lbs. ♦ The specimens indeed Income more stunted the further one goes up the Baltic, in the Sound and southern part of the Baltic, off t^openhagen, the size ranges from 3 to t! lbs., whereas 300 miles further up, oH'CJothland Island, they run from 2 to 3 lbs : at l.'>0 miles further up near Stockholm, nearly 500 miles from the Sound, the weight is barely I or 2 pounds. They difler in colour, being darker, and showing few spots, in contrast to the rich brownish red mottleil markings and spots of the cud nearer the sea or out in the open ocean. The Baltic cod .spawn in comjwratively shallow water somewhat late in the season off Gothlanil and Stockholm. A similar instance of the sea-cod's change of h.ibit is recorded in Iceland. In Olufs Kjord lake, a sheet of fresh water near the mouth of the romantic Olufs Fjord, and separated by a neck of land from the seaout-
* The well known .Scttiah autliority, l)r Pamell, w»m»rtainly wronfr when he uid 'Cod are never oiind but in salt water, and reinam habitually in the depth of the sea (Fishes of the Firth of Forth, p. 334).
31
•idc, th«raai« found ood, not dUlinguialMble froa the marine ood nMpt bv thvir ■nwllw dimonaions. ThU fraahwater RfweiM, kmlly called ' Mannwrw ' <• not found •!■•- whera in Iceland. In a Nona Jonrnal it is lUted that M. Elia^ K^lun ipMiallT mention* this Anh aa a kind of ood acclimatiied to trmh water ; but an opinion esiete that asubterritneanpaMiaga did or does allow of cominunioation witii the lea, and the ood may have found entrance in that way. Herring, it ii atated, have found th«ir way v*^ i* '"*■*"""*' '»•"»• »"«1 having pasaed the winter niontha there have died. In England, aroall ood 0 to 8 inches long are found considerable distancea up rivera. Thua they are common at Ooole, a town on the River Ouite, which emptiea into the estuary of the Humber, in Yorkshire. In Canada at leaat Ave species of Clupeoida very cI.mm'W allied to the true herring migrate up rivers to spawn in fresh water (viz., the gas- pereaux or alewivea, I'omotobi) two apeoie^ of shad (Alotn) have the same habit, one species of Donuoma, the Uizsard shad, which aacends the St. John River in New Brunswick, md one species of Br«voorlia, vii., the Menhaden or Fogy. Four other tpecies of clupeniila, at least, have Income completely acclimatized to a non-marine environment, viz., the goldeye (t/i-idon alo»oidf»), found in the Red River, Lake Winnipeg, and western waters, the mooneye {Uiodon hrguu*) of more eastern lakea and rivers, the blu.» herring (I'omotobtu chry»orMori») ond the alewife (F jMeudohareug^u) in Lake OnUrio and eaat^rn watera. The last named occur m LakeH Cnyuga anil Seneca and in western New York State ; but as they annually die in enormous numbers especially in June and July, some unfavourable circumstance exiHta. and experts are generally agreed that they are not indigenous. They certainly reach barely haif the length of the marine forms (i.e. (i or 7 inches instead of 12 or l.'J mchea). There are few recorda of the acclimatization of the true herring but it ia intereatmg to note that a ajiecial race of herrings ia native to the Baltic Sea called ' strdmming.' They are smaller than the herrings found in perfectly salt water, and paler in coloration ; but, contrary U> the opinion of experienced herring fishermen, who claim that herring-spawn cannot survive the influence of fresh water, li.e Baltic hernng spawn in suitable grounds irrespective of their salinity— indeed authorities have declared that in brackish water, where rivers debouch iuto the sea. there is more abundance of minute food for the young herring fry to live upon, and such localities are «5^cially favourable for breeding herring. In the Baltic there are local races of herring and, like their congeners in the sea, they spawn at two p»>riod8, viz., gprin« and late summer, indeed in the Southern Baltic the spawning tokes place as late as Octolier. Nowhere indeed has such conclusive evidence been furnisi.ed of the very limited and local range of the schools of herring as in the Baltic Sea. Overfishing and unfavour.ihle circum- sUnces have resultol even in that comparatively limited area, (not much im.re than five times the area of Ukft Superior) in the entire destruction of certain local herring fishones, the schools freciuenting other bays and coastal areas not moving in to fill the vacant places of the exterminated twh. LoflToden herring are catiifht in Borgef jord and in Lake Pollen, the latter almost fi h water but both connecte<l with the Polar Sea by a narrow sound and the catch per annum amounts from SO to .■)0 tons. They live and propagate away from pure sea water. Sea herring, and a smaller species closely allied, the sprat, are mentioned as successfully confined in fresh water or lather brackish water by Mr Arnold, of (Juernsey, in his experiments alreiwly mentioned, but they did m)t breed or become transformed into a fresh water form, as is certainly the case with the Baltic herring, specimens of which, some years ago, were kept for a long period in a fresh- water tank at the St. Andrew's Laboratory, Scotland, under the superinUmdence of the eminent zoologist. Professor Mcintosh.
Many instances are known of the smelt {0*meru» mordax) taking to a life in fresh- water though really a marine species, frequenting brackish water and migrating into freshwater mainly in the fall and in spring. It spawns in brackish water in spring. Colonel Meynell, of Yarni, in north Yorkshire. England, neariv oeventv veara ago, acclimatized smelts and successfully bred them. It is recorded that'they lived' ' for four years in a freshwater pond, having no communication wit^ the sea, and continued to thrive, and propagaU jundantly. They were not affected by freezing, as the whole I»nd, which covered abuut three acres, was so frozen over as to admit of skating When the pond was drawn, the fishermen of the Tees considered that they had never seen a
:^
as
flnar Mt of MMlta. Than wm no Iom of flkvoar nor o( i|twiitv '. Th* kU Sir if OibM>n MmUmkI ■uooMtfulljr (rM thetMMMpmriiiMntwKl mM '•itbcr th« fnwh w»Ur imtll of Amaric* ot our own 0»m»ru* tp^rUwu; which 1 h»v» inocMafuliy bstohad. Mid •m now raarini in frath w»Ur, it intruduoed into • Highland kieh, for inatanc*, * ^h T»y, would enable it to carry a vary heavy crop of loine of the inland ipecie*, for inatance laod-lookad salmon, Ac. (Cultare of 8alnionid«>, Lond. Int. Fith Exhibit.
183.)
In New Brunswick, Dr. Philip Cos has deaoribed a land locked smelt— indeed they altound in liooh Iiomond, near tit. John, N.B., and in the Cbamcuok waters in the Mme province. Thems land liicked varieties, I >r. Jortlao, the eminent ichthyologist, regtrHs as forming at IcsMt two Mpecies, nr rather aubapecim, distingui'ihable from the sea runn° smelt. One form, the vVilton »melt (Oimtrun inonla.r tfrnHrum) is land lockeo Wiltnn Fond in Maine, and the other form, thf Cobessiconlio Hiuelt (Otnuiruit numiax abbotti) ix found in the qeighbouriiig watern of Cobessicimtic I^ke, in Maine. In somo inHtancea tliore are narrow outleli to the sea. But th«> nmelt having i«ct|uired the habit of remainini; pcrmnnently in fresh water, shows no tendency to migrate t«» salt water. The lamJ locked nmelt in Lake Onuwa, Maine, cannot descend to the sea and they alnund in the lake* The true smelt belongs to the family siihiioniclie iind is therefore allied to the trout, salmon and whiteflsh : but the m) called sand nmelt, often terme<l the Atherine (Atlierina), of which six species, occur in more southerly Wiiterx on the Atlantt- shorew of this j-diitinent. b more nearly relaUnl to the niulletH {MugiHdm) and the sand- rollerst (I'ftcoiniiln'). The athennc to the untraine<l eye might be reaihly regimled as a smelt, and like the smelt it has kiec i acelimatized to fresh w»ter, indeed the Guernsey experiment demonstrated t;.i8, as the atherine in Mr. ArnoldV pond were amongst the most suceensful sjM-eieM. The malletM ine esi^entirtliy sea f yet instances are numerous or the reU'nlit>n of these fish in fresh water inelosures. In the (iuernsey pond the iiiullet survived, but did not breed or become properly occlimatiied, but in a fresh water pond in Tampa Buy, Klorida, mullet are found in great numters along with sheepshead {H/tariiM or Aicho»iirgn»), red fish (l'agru»), i:c. A oorresptmde-. t in the Ameriean Anylir, April, 189^*, describes this lake, which is named ' 8alt Lake,' a^ ' l i ^ long by 1} miles broad, huving two small fresh water streams pouring into it, and uue small outlet through low marshy woodland, connecting it with Tampa Bay at high water. Twenty five yeais ago this arm of the Iwy was suit, and peopled by salt water fish, but during a violent storm a bank was heaped up tutting off the lake, and inclosing some schools of murine lish. Home sharks and sting rays were imprisoned, but seemed unable to survive the winter (lMt<5). The water became a little brackish : but, says the writer refened to. ' it is now perfectly sweet and fresh, and has a slight current towards thesmall outlet where the water drains off'. Red fish are caught in the lake weighing 3H lbs. and of much richer red colour, and of finer and more delicate flavour than those taken in the sea outside. This last remark applies to nmllets and many sea lish whenacclimati/ed in freili water. Thus Dr. J. C Mitchell, an authority on the tishes of Kjjypt, tells us that three species of mullet frequent brackish water there, and when retained in fresh water j)onds nttain a greater size and a more excellent flavour. He descrilies Lake Meiizaleh. which communicates with the sea by an an.ient mouth of the Nile. It is brackish, but varies in salinity at different seasons. Near the fresh water inlets it is comparatively fresh, but near the sea entrance it is more salt, and while there is a p"re|)onderance of marine species in the Salter portions, the influx of flood water from the Nile affects the salinity of the whole lake, and many species, wanderers from the sea, succumb to the change<l conditions. Dr. Mitchell states that all the mullets spawn in the sea and they as a family are essentially shore tishes ; but they have a preference for the mouths of rivers, and cut-off lakes where the water is brackish, while not unfre<iuently they are found to enter rivers,' indeed MttgU cephcUut and Mugil eayito have been caught more than 600 miles up the Nile, as far south that is to wvy as Assouan. ' When kept in fmsh wat«r
*L»ii<l lockwl Httlmon frwiueiitlj; wcur in lakw iubahittx) by land locked Bitielt, and the latter rosy Msxmnt for thf low! irf the migratory inntinct in the former an the Hslmun are found to mainly fw<l uijon the smelt.
IS
ponda'Mldalh-. MitcMI, 'moJltt ••* found U> improve r»pidljr in wrtght »nd oondi- Son,' Mid h« RUggMMd to th* Eiryptlm gorernii. ui ihi- raparinent of utooking freth wkMr pondi with nullat fry, which in midtummar abound in tli« in*hora (hallow* n{
Laka Maniaieh. . , ^ .
The (lat-ttihea an' withoat escaption marina, yat eerUin unaoiaa of Roondar ara found to wandt-r up river* Iobk di»tanc«* from aalt watar. The eummon flounder nttnrrmmtei j^ntt aa Frank Buckland autwl ' inhahiu evary part of the Hritiih coaat, and ofU-n aac-and to riven beyond tha reach of the tide, thriving alike in »alt, brackiih or in freah water. Now that tha Thameit i» Kitting purer, tha floundem are returiing to tha river above London Bridge.' Many yeara ago I caught Knecirocn* «»f the flounder at Biooal, near York, on the Ou»e, in the north of KngUnd, fully Hfly Ave milea from tha aea, and they are recorded on triliuUrieH of the Ou»e (vii., the Nidd and Kibble), over eighty inilea from tha mouth of the Hum>>ar. An tha iipeciea of rtf.und»<r mentioned and moat of the flat-liah, indeed, p<«*e«« floatin« egg» not at all favourablf for deposition in rivera and running water, i'- i» prolmble that they do not succ>«afully bree«l away from th»> aea, aa theii eggt would appear to have little chance of Huivival. I>r. Parnell makes thf claim, which liiui already been mentioned in connection with other upeciea of Ash, that flounderH found in freah water are more hiwhly e-teemed for the Ubie than thoea uken in aalt water. He alio makex the que8t)ontt^>le aitiertion that they spawn in brackinh water in March and April, but they cerUinly make iht'ir way into frenh water in many caiwa at a very early alagc. Thun, Profeasor Mclntoah deitcriliea them as occurring numerou*ly in May at the outlet of a mill itream, which pours freah water into 8t. Andrew's HarlMur, Scotland, atid their length at rliat time was ban-ly half iin inch. Young floundera very little older, Or. Mclntoah adds, can lie captured conaideralile distances up the fresh water stream. Other species of flat-tkhes appear less hanly and venturesome. Tha p'aice (Pleuron«Hi-» tJalctm) has, however, lK?en suca-sitfully retained and fattened in freshwater ponds, as Dr. Parnell states, and the highly esteemed sole (Sdra vulf/arin) and the turlwt (RhomhiiH maximym) were thoroughly acclimatized by Mr. Arnold, in Ouernst-y. Thire i» only one record of thf occurrence of thn solo under natural conditions in pi-actioally fresh water limiU, viz., near the mouth of the Yoik.sliire Ouse, in the estuary of the Huraber. .Such ftshes OS the striped bass, which, like the snieli, regularly asc.ous for some distance fresh-water streams, might be expected to survive retention, and this has been proved to be the case. In some of the larger Canadian rivers, the St. John River and the Miram.chi River for example, striped liass (Raccu» linealus) inigrate for distances of from thirty to forty milea above the limits of sea water, and congregate in large schools in deep holes in the bed of the river. There they remain in a dormant condition, resting on the muddy bottom, and are captured in grrat numbers by a kind of scoop net. Dr. Perley in his '8ea and River Fisheries of New Brunswick ' (1852) says 'the places which they frequent are easily discovered, the fish being seen through the clear ice when it first makes ; large holes are cut in the ice, and the tish are lifted out with a circular net cm a strong vooden bow, called a dip-net. All the fish in each locality, of whatever size are thus taken ; and in many of the northern rivers, ei»pecially the Richibucto, and North-west Miramichi, where they were formerly very a)>undant, they are now quite scarce and only found of small size.' There is record of a striped Imiss confined in a fresh water pond which grew to a weight of 20 pounds— a considerable weight for a fish retained for some years in abnormal surroundings. The flavour too of the impounded striped bass is stated to improve, for Dr. MacCulloch personally vouched for the superiority of the flavour of the specimens confined in Mr. Arnold's fresh- water lake in Guernsey.
Fish vary so greatly in their tenacity of life, that until experiments have shown what any particular species can endure without pennanent injury, it is not possible to foretell ita capabilities. The German carp, for example has peculiar tenacity and endurance. A member of Pariiauient inforuied me, a year or two ago, of a fine sprcimt-n of carp that was found several miles from Ijike Erie where they were planted and now abound. This carp was a very large specimen and was wriggling along a plough- furrow in which there was little or no water, evidently kept moist and alive by the thick damp herbage, just as they may lie kept alive in damp moss. The accomplished E E. P. — 3.
34
angling authority of New York, Mr. Win. C. HarriH, records a hardly less eitraordinary cas-e of the tenacity of the German carp : ' Many clubs are draining their ponds in the hope to eradicate this^fish ; but it will be well to do the work thoroughly, for Mr Louis Papitieau, of Montebello, Canada, tells us of a carp pond being drained, cleaned and exposed for some days until it was thoroughly dry. On the sixth lay water was intro- duce'l, and some hours after several large c irp were seen swimining near the surface. This is another striking instance of the vitality of this fish, which evidently burrowed into the mud a.s the pond was drained.* .Many fishes are able t«> survive dry sea-sons by immersing themselves in mud ; but they are Hpeciiilly organized for that peculiar habit. The bull-head trilie, (.yi/Hrt(/a«), are hardy and tenacious and l>eing exceptionally goo<l table tiiih aflFonl a fine field for experiment in acclimatization.
The Catfish family, including so many forms notoriously hardy and tenacious of life miglit U> supposed to present numerous examples of acclimatization by transference from frosl. water to salt water Yet the records of successful transplanting are few. There are thiriy or ft)rty sf ecies which are strictly marine ; but certain of the fresh water spe- cies have lieen found to be capable of etiduring life in salt water. Thus the Finhing atnHte (of New York) announced in .\i>ril, 18<tG, the capture of a freshwater catfi.sh in the sea at (Jravesend Bay, Long Island. A few days later, six ' squaretailed bullheads', of thi- same kind as the foregoing, were takoo in a hoop or fvke-net, and they were kept alive for xonic days by alternately supplying fresh and salt water in imitation of the tidal inflow and outflow, but the fish could not be kept in captivity very long. No doubt by a L'ladual pii>cess of change the common catfislies of our lakes and rivers could 1)6 acclimatized, and their increasing market importance would give great value to the expcviment. If the fresh water s)>ecies could b<; so acclimatized as to endure or nitlier live in health in water strongly impregrated with saline and alkaline matters, their .suitability for introduction into certain barnn waters in the north-west of the Domi- nion would be demonstrated. Hut while numerous instances ate to hand of salt water fishes becoming completely icconciled to a fresh water environment, the cases seem to be far rarer of fishes, native to fresh water, a'^suming a salt water existence. Yet Bloch sfimcwhere states that tlie grayling, one of the most delicate and fastidious of the salm<moids, frc(|uents the Baltic and the Caspian Sea. Sir Humphrey l»avy, curiously enough, laid special stress u|)On this very fxjint. that while salmon and tnmt readily endure such changes ,,f conditions, the grayling ('ri,:i„uijl,ig) will not bear evei» brackish water without dying, (irayling and r)eich undoubtedly live in certain parts of the Baltic which Linnaeus slated, after drinking some of the" water, is very slightly brackish, even a mile from the shore in the upper portion. The perch (P,-rcn /lnivscfnn) is found - 3ry abundantly at the mouth of the Miramichi and other Canadian rivers, where the water is i|uit« saline, indeed where the estuary is practically part of the sea.
There are numerous species of very small fish, of no importance from an economic point of view, which frequent indifferently sea water and freshwater. Thus the G,i 8- tronteido or stickle backs are found in astonishing abundance i.i shallow estuarie.s, and the three sjiined species nests, breeds and passes its whole life frecjuently in small pools just alKjve high water mark, where high tides thoroughly impregnate the water with sail le matters : but which during most of the year are kept slightly brackish by trickling streams of fresh water from the adjacent laiid. There are of course genuine marine species in the family, one (Ga^trostens xpiiiacltia), the fifteen spined species, builds a large nest of AVuxor other marine plants attached to rocks Iwtween tide marks, another (1. gliidinwuhiH is found in the ea-t Atlantic coast amid floating sea weeds. Oa>!lro«t.„K pitngtliiiH, the ten spined species, is recorded from brackish and salt water, but its rela- tives, especially Gaxtrtmienif ariih-atiiti, are found flistributed, from lakes and streai" for inland and up the highest mountains to low lying marine swamps and estuaries T td the species named often aUmnds in pools just aU.ut high-water mark making it ^all mound like nest and rearing its numerous families regardless of the variety of ndi- tions obtaining in these various situations. There is no more remarkable featui prt sented by fishes than this incapability, on the one hand, in some species, of enduring salt water or even brackish water ; and on the other hand in other species, the capability
.,*, •*!*■""'"' 'V^'fit? "' '■^''l' """'•'"liinft ill liof »>nl in iilkalinc wau-id ttre.iiicsti.inablc (S<* Bulletin U.8 ri«h ' 'Hiimi.". \:A. \\ .. p. lai jinii Vi>! V , i.. 4-.?7.
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ot living and flourishing in the mid«t r.f » » u
water environment. '"'^'^ "^ " ^""h --ter. brackish or even .xtre.ne salt
The plasticity of various so*-"' - „ -Ki. . ■
would be of great value C; C.,. r?- "^^P^"* '» » matter upon which Pvn.,'
damp r.«k8 out of water that )„. t,. v V « ,**' *" """"stomed itself to ivi„ ,1 I'e ><aw of .te h.ibit« heoxDwt. n „ u ^ ' «alfouronce declared that Xn. ". rae.-ion i„ water. 'Thes^shes » T. '^'' '""'''' ^ inevitably dmwned l.v ""■'''
seaweed and the surface of thV-^. ' . "^ Jump along by a series of llln ?''
neath the surface " ThL «n! T'f' '.""'^ f^'^^'''- «««?!*« in that w»v rP'''."^''.'-f'ck«, carried on .-.ne'^:xperitrrZ ^t' '''■ '"''" ^'*^'' ^-tl-e "f st? H„rX'T^' '"- smn may be statedl fdlows tuJT "**."' "" *'"' ^''""tJ of fishes aZtP V'
*l'rrii>|)litiiiilmn.s.
M