The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1930-07-10

should a bullhead be called bull
head when, in fact. it belongs to the
catfish family? Very simple; cut
across lots and call the fish a cat
fish. Then again, pursuing the
same inference why call the small
mouth and the largemouth bass by
the name of bass, when, as a mat
ter of fact they belong to the sun
fish family and are not bass at all?
Very simply call them sunfish and
be correct about it thus eliminating
the hated species and subspecific
differentiation of the socalled
"closet naturalists" that Surber so
heartily detests.
Thus we might pass from one
group of fishes to the other, final
ly getting around to the pike argu-
ment: Why call musky a musky
when after all it was originally de-
rived from the pike in the dim long
ago when the earth was in the
throes of the making. Choose the
shortcut and call the fish pike.
The. pickerel also being branch
of the pike family, dating back to
thousands of years, refuse hence
forth to call it a pickerel.. Call it
a pike. So forth and so on. Mr.
Surber hates species and SUBJ
species in fishes simply because he
has not been able to convince the
ninety-and-nine that he is right in
his musky VS. pike argument-and
he never will arrive at something
that is past all possibility of being
proved an argument of merit or
one even worth spending precious
time on.
Mr.. Surber compliments the
European naturalists for making
few species out of their birds, ami
mails and fishes, thereby avoiding
the pitfalls and mistakes of the
American naturalists." He states
that this same great northern pike
(Which admittedly is found all over
Europe, down to the northern part
Of Italy, in fact) and which is also
found throughout Russia and Asia,
surely must. somewhere in this
great expanse show difference as
one from another, in fact evince
tremendous variations" that would
we will say, let a "musky specie"
slip in to comfort Mr.. Surber that
this same musky occurs in Europe
Russia and Asia as well as right
here in North America.
But no such comfort will ever be
granted Mr.. Surber. In fact the
most exhaustive search of all the
waters across the "big pond" will
fail to produce a fish even ap-
preaching the muskellunge in it's
conformation and any one of sever
al point that might be brought up
and held out as a clue to the I'M
known.
The muskellunge is very simply a
North American fish, found in
North America only just as the
brook trout, fontinalis, is strictly an
American product and was never
found in a native state in Europe
or Asia. In the words of one nat
uralist, the birthplace of the mus
kellunge was somewhere in the st.
Lawrence Basin, probably in the
region of the Ten Thousand Is
lands, and surely not one hunrded
miles distant from that locality.
From it's birthplace it has admit
tedly spread and is now found in
places where undoubt-
edly it has been carried and plant
ed. It was originally my conten-
ton that the muskellunge never oc-
cured in native state in the Lake
of the Woods region in fact that it
was brought up there and planted,
very successfully. For the sake of
hating controversy I dropped my
own end Of the argument only af-
ter I had innocently created so
much interest in Lake of the Woods
muskies as to send thousands of
fishermen to the fishing camps on
that body of water.
Likewise have I made the state
ment that the black bass was I'M
known originally in the upper Lake
of the Woods region and after ex-
haustive research and probing of
inside facts find that timber SUI
pervisor some twenty-five years ago
brought the black bass into the re-
gion and planted them. Fishermen
thereafter carried the bass from
one lake to another with amazing