86 Food of Fishes of Winona Lake 



Catostomus nigricans Le Sueur (hog-molly) 11 



Esox vermiculatus Le Sueur (grass pike) 4 



Ambloplites rupestris Raf. (rock bass) 4 



Pomoxis sparoides Raf. (black crappie) 4 



Notropis Raf. (variable-toothed minnow) 5 



Chaenobryttus gulosus Cuv. and Val. (Warmouth bass) . . 3 



Dorosoma cepedianum Raf. (hickory shad) 2 



Esox lucius L. (pike) 1 



Etheostoma nigrum Raf. (Johnny darter) 1 



Lepomis megalotis Raf. (long-eared sunfish) 1 



Lepisosteus osseus L. (long-nosed gar) 1 



Perca flavescens Mitchill (Yellow Perch) — Table I 



The perch is a very active fish possessing marked agility and a well 

 developed habit of jumping above the surface of the water to secure adult 

 winged insects. It is usually found in water ranging from two to twenty feet 

 in depth, among water plants, chiefly rushes and Potamogeton. The younger 

 perch feed on Chironomus larvae, entomostracha and amphipods, all directly 

 dependent on plant life for food; while the principal food of the larger perch 

 consists of fish. 



By examining Table I, it is very apparent that the food of the young 

 perch is decidedly different from that of the older perch. The major part 

 of the food of the young perch or the perch from 28 mm. in length up to 

 about 40 or 50 mm. consists chiefly of cladocerans, copepods, amphipods and 

 Chironomus larvae. From the 40 to 50 mm. period to the period of about 

 90 mm. in length they seem to be at the height of indiscriminate feeding, 

 the food consisting principally of cladocerans, amphipods, ostracods, Chirono- 

 mus larvae, caddis-fly larvae, Haliplus larvae, odonata larvae, may-fly larvae, 

 snails and a few fish. After reaching a length of about 90 mm. another 

 change takes place. They confine themselves to fewer and larger foods. The 

 chief items of the food are now fish and snails with a general eating of small 

 amounts of insect larvae and plant tissue. 



These facts correspond very closely with the findings of S. A. Forbes 

 ('80), who found the food of the perch up to one inch in length to consist 

 wholly of entomostraca, while the larger perch had taken a greater variety. 

 He sums up his findings as follows: "It will then be seen that the common 

 perch has a food history of three periods — the periods of infancy, youth and 

 old age. In the first it lives wholly on Entomostraca and the minutest larvae 

 of Diptera; in the second commencing when the fish is about an inch and a 

 half in length it takes up first the smaller and then the larger kinds of 

 aquatic insects in gradually increasing ratio, the entomostracan food at the 

 same time diminishing in importance; and in the third it appropriates, in 

 addition, mollusks, crawfishes and fishes — in the lake specimens depending 

 almost wholly on the last two elements." 



Again in ('88), he has the following to say: "The food of six common 

 perch (perca lutea) from an inch to an inch and a quarter long, consisted 

 wholly of entomostraca ninety-two per cent, and minute larvae of chironomus. 

 Forty-three sunfishes (centrarchidae) from five-eighths of an inch to two 

 inches long, had made ninety-six per cent of their food of entomostraca and 



