SEMOTILUS FALLFISHES 121 



algse and miscellaneous vegetable debris. Occasionally fragments 

 of insects or a specimen of the mud-loving Entomostraca may be 

 found in the general mixture, and individual specimens have been 

 reported to eat decayed fish in the aquarium. 



Its spawning season, if we may judge from our collections, is 

 from May 15 to June 15 in central Illinois. Dr. Eigenmann reports 

 that the eggs are sometimes laid on the under surface of various 

 objects submerged in shallow water. He found them throughout 

 June and a part of July, one of the parents being, as a rule, on guard 

 about the nest. The snout of the male in the breeding season bears 

 three rows of large tubercles, seven in one row at the margin of the 

 upper lip, five in a row directly above this, and four in an upper row, 

 two of them between the nostrils and one on each side between the 

 nostril and the eve. 



Genus SEMOTILUS Rafixesque 

 (fallfishes) 



Body robust; mouth terminal; upper jaw protractile; a small barbel 

 on the upper side of the maxillary just in front of its extremity (not at 

 its tip as in most American minnows); teeth 2, 5-4, 2, hooked, without 

 grinding surface; intestine short; peritoneum pale; dorsal rays 7 or 8; 

 anal rays 8; scales 45 to 60 in lateral series; lateral line continuous. 

 Size large, 6 to 18 inches. Two species, 5. atromaculatus being found 

 from Maine to Wyoming, and 5. corporalis, the large chub or fallfish of 

 the Eastern creeks, being confined to the east of the Alleghanies. 



Fig. 25 



SEMOTILUS ATROMACULATUS (Mitchill) 

 (horned dace; creek chub) 



Mitchill, 1818, Am. Month. Mag., II, 324 (Cyprinus). 



G., VII., 269 (Leucosomus corporalis); J. & G., 221 (corporalis); M. V., 66; J. & E., 



I, 222; X., 45 (corporalis); J., 62 (corporalis); F., 75 (corporalis); F. F., I. 6, 



88 (corporalis); L., 15. 



