ENEMIES OF THE WHITE-FISH. 513 



the uiillmen were obliged to throw the, bodies off into the current, to be carried down stream to 

 prevent the offensive stench that wan wafted into the mills from the decaying remains. 



"A fisherman at Evanston, Illinois, a few years ago had nine hundred hooks set in the lake, 

 and in one day took from these five hundred lizards, removing them all himself, as his men, 

 sharing the popular notion oil the Lakes, believed them to be poisonous, and preferred to cut away 

 hook and all to taking hold of the slimy amphibian. They are, of course, entirely harmless in 

 this particular, and make no more attempt to bite than a frog does. A full series of this species 

 was this season collected from Detroit Eiver, from the length of one and one-fourth inch to thir- 

 teen inches. Later, about the middle of the month of July, Mr. George Clark collected a quantity 

 of their eggs, proving this mouth to be the spawning season of the animal. 



"The sturgeon are very generally believed to be spawn-caters. Though the ova of the White- 

 fish and the perch have been observed among the stomach contents of this fish, the principal food 

 has always been found to be snails, the fresh-water genera being generally represented, the 

 weaker shells crushed iuto fragments, and the stronger ones of the PaJudinidce and even Limneas 

 remaining unbroken. Dr. E. Sterling, of Cleveland, who examined the stomachs of a large number 

 of sturgeon in the vicinity of the Sandusky fisheries, made the same observation. There are few 

 of the bottom-feeding fishes but whose stomachs will not generally be found to contain a few eggs, 

 though in company with other food in greater quantity. 



In the fry stage they must suffer to some extent from the piscivorous fishes. The most numer- 

 ous and voracious of their enemies is likely to be the wall-eyed pike, Stizostedion amerlcana, numer- 

 ous in the shoal waters of the lakes and comparatively rare on the deeper shores. The perch, Perca 

 flavescens, are very generally distributed and quite numerous; the contents of their stomachs are 

 generally found to be vertebrate forms. The black bass, Micropterus nigricans, is plentiful in Lake 

 Erie, but as its ordinary food is the crawfish, where these are numerous its depredations on the 

 schools of young fish would be of comparatively little importance. The white bass, Roccus chry- 

 sops, the muskelluuge, Esox nobilior, and the lake pike, Esox lucius, do not inhabit the Lakes in suf- 

 ficient numbers to be very troublesome to the White-fishes. It is the prevailing idea on the Lakes 

 that the Mackinaw or Salmon Trout feeds largely on the White-fish. Here as everywhere civilized 

 man disturbs the balance of nature, and becomes the great enemy to all forms of life that do not 

 conform to his artificial methods for their protection. Not only by the hundreds of artifices for the 

 capture of the White-fish, but in the foul drainage from the cities, smelting- works and manufacto- 

 ries, and in the quantities of sawdust from the mills, they are, driven from their favorite haunts and 

 spawning grounds, and their food destroyed by waters tainted with fatal chemical combinations." 



Mr. Milner mentions the natural casualties of storms, deposits of sediment smothering the 

 eggs, the vegetable growth found to be so fatal in the hatching troughs, as causes of destruction 

 to immense quantities of White-fish spawn. 



Mr. Lanman, speaking of the enemies of the White-fish, says that the great Gray Trout (Salmo 

 ferox) follows the White-fish to the shore and preys upon it. While the nets are set for White- 

 fish, the fishers, with torch and spear, attack and capture the Salmo ferox, frequently of large 

 size; and hence this latter fish has acquired the name of Ti/hidi from the river to which it is 

 attracted by its favorite prey. 



FOOD. Mr. Milucr, in his " Report upon the Fisheries of the Great Lakes," wrote the follow- 

 ing paragraphs on the White-fish : 



"The food of the White-fish has been a problem inciting numerous conjectures among 

 fishermen, sportsmen, and fish-culturists, and baffling the investigation of a few naturalists 

 for a number of years past. To Dr. P. R. Hoy, of Racine, we think, belongs the credit of first 

 33 v 



