LAKE HERRING OF GREEN BAY, LAKE MICHIGAN 



123 



herring in the St. Lawrence River near Ogdensburg, 

 N. Y., on June 6, 17, and 18, and at Waddington, 

 N. Y., on June 28, in 1930. Since adult lake 

 herring are unknown in the river, it is presumed 

 that these fish came 78 miles downstream from 

 Lake Ontario. The lengths of these young herring 

 on different dates of collection were as follows: 



The mean length of 21 millimeters of the June 6 

 collection corresponds closely with the length of 

 20 mm. recorded by Pritchard (1930) on June 1. 

 Cahn (1927) took three young of the year with an 

 average length of 62.5 mm. in a gill net fished on 

 the bottom at 52 feet in Lake Oconomowoc on 

 June 20, 1922. Fry (1937) caught 0-group 

 ciscoes in the region of the thermocline in 

 Lake Nipissing during late August 1933 to 1935. 

 Hile (1937) found 17 young lake herring (average 

 length, 65 mm.) washed upon the shore of Trout 

 Lake during late summer. Reighard (1915) re- 

 ported similar recoveries of young in Douglas 

 Lake and Ward (1896) found small lake herring 

 washed up on the shore of Lake Michigan follow- 

 ing storms. Records of a few recoveries of small 

 lake herring from shallow-water areas of the Great 

 Lakes are on file in the Fish Division of the Mu- 

 seum of Zoology, University of Michigan. 



Knowledge of the distribution and habits of 

 young-of-the-year lake herring is scanty in Green 

 Bay also. In spite of a constant lookout for them 

 during all field work and attempts to locate them 

 with midwater and bottom trawls during the sum- 

 mer of 1952 only two young-of-the-year lake her- 

 ring have been taken from Green Bay. Botli 

 were captured in a 1 -inch-mesh gill net from 17 

 fathoms of water off Gills Rock on December 12, 

 1951. One was a male 6.0 inches long and the 

 other a female 5.8 inches long. Otter trawls of 

 the same construction as those used in a search 

 for small lake herring in Green Bay caught large 

 numbers of yearling lake herring in Lake Superior 

 in 1953 (often more than 1,000 in a 10-minute tow). 

 The best catches were made at 5 to 15 fathoms in 

 the Apostle Islands area near Bayfield, Wis., and 

 along the southeastern shore of the Keweenaw 



Peninsula. These collections have not yet been 



studied, but examination of a few specimens 



showed that they were just starting their second 



year of life. Young-of-the-year lake herring 10 



to 12 mm. long were taken in surface plankton 



tows on May 29 and 30 near Bayfield, Wis. These 



fry match the descriptions by Prichard (1930) and 



Fish (1932) of lake herring of the same length from 



Lakes Erie and Ontario. Further evidence that 



fry of the genus Levcichthys may be pelagic was 



obtained wlien fry of either L. hoyi or L. reighardi 



(my tentative identification) were collected by 



the author with a dip net in open water on Lake 



Michigan near North Manitou Island on July 30, 



1952. 



FECUNDITY 



The number of eggs produced by female lake 

 herring varies widely both within and between 

 populations. Jordan and Evermann (1902) and 

 Bean (1902) carried similar accounts of what must 

 be the same fish — a 2K-pound female tullibee from 

 the "western territories of Canada" — that held 

 23,700 eggs. Cahn (1927), using the volumetric 

 method, estimated the number of eggs of a 465- 

 gram (about 1 pound) female from Lake Ocono- 

 mowoc at 15,238. Bajkov (1930) stated that the 

 tullibee of the Canadian prairie provinces carry 

 15,000 to 20,000 eggs. Brown and Moffett (1942), 

 using a partial- weight method, estimated the 

 number of eggs in ovaries of 9 ciscoes from Swains 

 Lake. The results of their study were as follows: 



No correlation was found between number of 

 eggs and size or age of these fish. Scott (1951) 

 also used the partial-weight method to estimate 

 the egg count of 12 Il-group and 6 Ill-group ciscoes 

 from Lake Erie. His findings are summarized as 

 follows : 



Age group II: 



-N'umber of eggs 

 Total length of flsh ' 

 Weight of fish 



Age group III: 



Numner of eggs 

 Total length of fish ' 

 Weight of flsh 



Average 



29.225.. 

 13.4 In. 

 1.181b.. 



23,017.. 

 15.3 in.. 

 1.65 lb- 



Range 



16,000 to 42,500. 



11.7 to 14.4 in. 

 0.65 to 1.50 1b. 



14.200 to 38,600. 



13.8 to 1(1.6 In. 

 0.06 to 2.21 lb. 



' This paper gave only standard lengths. Estimates of total length In this 

 stock have been based on the assumption that the ratio of total lengtb to 

 standard length was 1.19— a value near the middle of the range o( conversion 

 factors listed by Carlander (1950). 



