Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-26
OUR kIsH MIsNAMED.
| First Corners to America Knew Few
Names but Cod, Bass and Trout.

From the New York Sun.
The fishes of the United States are oddly
nlisnamed, according to DR.. Theodore Gill.
cooperative worker with the bureau of fish
cries. DR.. Gill says:
THE known fishes of England are few,
and the early colonists knew few even Of
them. The newcomers were astounded at
the abundance of the fishes about their new
home To these numerous fishes they trans
ferred names of English species with which
they were more or less familiar. On ac-
count of the greater number of species COM
mon to the two countries, those who came
from old England to New England were not
very far astray, but as they or their success
sors wandered farther and farther they
made many mistakes. A few examples VIII
illustrate:
Among the most common of the English
fishes are the cod, perch bass and. trout.
The immigrants to Massachusetts applied
these names to fishes of the same genera as
the originals, but mostly of different species.
Perch has been used in this country as a
name for very different sorts of fishes. In
England the name Is specifically applied TO
a well-known fresh water fish. The immi-
grants to New England found fish almost
undistinguishable from it and gave it the
same name. Others gave il to fishes having
no real resemblance. The so-called white
perch of the Atlantic coast is in. reality a
bass. The silver perch, the gray perch. the
white perch of the Ohio river the red perch
BASS is applied to many different species
"a score or more. In England it is the
proper name of a marine fish common only
along the southern coast. related species.
though of a different genus, was found by
the new settlers of Massachusetts and New
York and quite properly called bass or
striped bass. There are. by the way sew
eral other species in this country entitled TO
the name but which, oddly enough, have
been given the names of other fish, as for
instance, the white perch. All others are
quite remote from the true bass-eVen the
so-called black basses.
Trout is another OF the English names
variously misapplied. In the old country 1t
is given 20 a single species generally dis
tributed through the island in clear. cold
streams. The Pilgrims found in similar
streams in Massachusetts a fish somewhat
like II, and called il by the same name, al
though II Izaak Walton had been among
them he might have told them it was not
trout but a char. Others found In Maine
lanolocked salmon, and in various large
lakes another good-sized salmonid, and APP
piled to them also the name Of trout. Set
tiers in troutless southern states bound to
give the name to some fish, gave 1t to the
kind generally known as black bass. Along
the southern coast, too, the name trout, or
sea trout. was given to entirely different
kinds of fishes. When the Americans
reached the California coast they found GER
tain fishes of a peculiar family, not at all
like trout in shape or fms, but spotted, and
these they also called trout Still another
fish, found in the ella river. a slender.
large-mouthed cyprinid. was called trout by
early explorers and stiH bears the name.
But this is not all, or the worst These
odd names are not only widely scattered:
they accumulate. Cod and trout are given
to the same fish along the Pacific coast.
Another fish is called rock cod about Puget
sound. and rock trout and sea trout AT San
Francisco.