FISHES OF NEW YORK 227 



cies, and the scales are liable to a peculiar roughness which has 

 been observed late in November or during the spawning season. 

 There is also a lernean which fastens itself to the gills and other 

 parts of the whitefish. 



Uses and capture. The excellence of the flesh of the whitefish 

 is so well known as scarcely to require mention. Its commer- 

 cial value is great. In Lake Erie in 1885, according to statistics 

 collected by the U. S. Fish Commission, 3,500,000 pounds of white- 

 fish were caught, more than 2,000,000 of this amount by fisher- 

 men from Erie alone. In this year Erie county had 310 persons 

 employed in the fisheries. The capital invested in the business 

 was nearly $250,000. The wholesale value of the fish products 

 was upward of $400,000. The whitefish was the third species in 

 relative importance, blue pike ranking first and the lake herring 

 second. In Erie county whitefish are caught chiefly in July, 

 August and November, and the bulk of them are taken in gill 

 nets. Pound nets are also employed in the capture of whitefish. 



Artificial propagation. Carl Muller of New York and Henry 

 Brown of New Haven are credited with the first attempt to pro- 

 pagate the whitefish artificially. Their experiments were made 

 in Lake Saltonstall, near the city of New Haven. The result 

 of the experiments, which were repeated in 1858, is not known. 

 In 1868 Seth Green and Samuel Wilinot began a series of ex- 

 periments in the same direction, and in 1869 N. W. Clark, of 

 Clarkson Mich, took up the same work. In 1870 a half million 

 eggs were placed in hatching boxes by Mr Clark. In 1872, 

 through the aid of the U. S. Fish Commission, Mr. Clark's hatch- 

 ing house was doubled in capacity, and a million eggs were 

 taken from Lake Michigan. Since that time both the national 

 and state governments have made the whitefish the object 9f 

 their most extensive operations. 



Dr Meek saw no specimens of whitefish from Cayuga lake, but 

 he thinks it is an inhabitant. The U. S. Fish Commission ob- 

 tained a specimen at Cape Vincent N. Y. Nov. 17, 1891. 



A young individual was received from Wilson, Niagara co. 

 N. Y. ; caught in a gill net in Lake Ontario and sent by James 

 Annin jr. 



