LIKE HISTOUY OF LAKE HERRING OF LAKE HURON 349 



ABUNDANCE OF LAKE HERRING 



I have hoeii imablo to find many dei)cndablc data on tlic relative abundance of 

 herring in Lake Huron during past years. In the statistics of the United States 

 Bureau of Fisheries (Radcliffe, 1920, Sette, 1925) the herring are lumped together 

 with all the other species of Leucichthys (chubs and bloaters) under the name of 

 ciscoes. The annual reports of the Game and Fisheries Department of Ontario, 

 Canada, furnish statistics on the production of herring in the Canadian waters 

 of the Great Lakes; but whether these so-called herring include the chubs and 

 bloaters is not clear. No statistics are given for the latter species (unless they are 

 included with the tullibees), though it is known that they are taken by Canadian 

 fishermen. In most of the biennial reports of the Michigan Fish Commission, the 

 predecessor of the present Department of Conservation of Michigan, the herring 

 statistics of all the Great Lakes are lumped together. The tenth, eleventh, and 

 thirteenth reports give herring statistics for the west shore of Lake Huron from 

 Hammond Bay to the mouth of the Detroit River (district No. 4). In the biennial 

 reports of the Department of Conservation of the State of Michigan the herring 

 productions are considered separately for the Michigan waters of Lake Huron proper 

 and for Saginaw Bay. 



The published statistics of the lake herring of Lake Huron (including Saginaw 

 Bay) are shown in Table 28, together with the average price per pound received by 

 the fishermen. The table shows that the average catch for the years 1891 to 1897 

 was 785,950 pounds more than that for the years 1920 to 1925, although the annual 

 catches of the two periods are strikingly similar, while the average price per pound 

 increased from 0.7 cent in the former period to 2.6 cents in the latter. The available 

 statistics can not, perhaps, be employed as exact criteria by which to determine whether 

 the herring are undergoing depletion in Lake Huron; but the fact that the annual 

 catches of herring are no larger now than they were in the years 1891 to 1897, in spite 

 of the great improvements in and of the increase in the number of fishing apparatuses 

 and in spite of the increase in the value of this species, may suggest that the herring 

 are less numerous now than they were 30 years ago. 



There is, perhaps, no one thing that needs gi-eater attention on the Great Lakes 

 to-day than the careful collection of fishery statistics. These statistics should be 

 collected every year, and where possible each species should be considered by itself. 

 Some general plan for the taking of statistics should be evolved and adopted by both 

 Canada and the United States. By some such means the statistics of the various 

 lakes and of various parts of one lake would become much more comparable than 

 they now are. 



INTERPRETATION OF THE STRUCTURAL FEATURES OF THE SCALES OF 



THE LAKE HERRING 



MATERIAL 



The following life history of the lake herring, based upon a study of the scales, 

 involves only the Saginaw Bay fish taken by me or sent to me by Mr. Kavanaugh, 

 of Bay City, Mich., in the fall of 1921, 1922, 1923, and 1924. These Saginaw Bay 

 herring are compared later with the herring collected by Doctor Koelz in 1917 and 1919 



