3i: 



SEVENTH REPORT OF THE FOREST, FISH AND GAME COMMISSION. 



insects and crustaceans. During the spawning season of the Whitefish, however, it 

 feeds exclusively on the eggs of this species and proves very destructive. The 

 Lake Herring will take the hook, and has been caught with live minnows. 

 Spawning takes place about the end of November in shoal waters. 



As a food fish this species is inferior to the Whitefish, but it is in great demand 

 over an extensive area of the country, and is shipped in the fresh condition many 

 hundred miles east and west. I have elsewhere referred to the enormous number 

 taken in 1885 in Lake Erie. These are caught chiefly in pound and gill nets. The 

 catch in 1885 amounted to more than one-third of the entire quantity of fishes 

 taken in this lake. There is no apparent diminution in the number of these fishes, 

 and their artificial propagation has only recently been commenced. 



MOONEYE CISCO. 



54. Mooneye Cisco {Argy?-osoiinis Iioyi Gill). 



Argyrosomus hoyi Gill, Mss.; Jordan, Amer. Naturalist, 135, March, 1875, Lake 

 Michigan, near Racine, Wis.; Bean, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., IX, 342, 1897, 

 Canandaigua Lake ; Jordan & Evermann, Bull. 47, U. S. Nat. Mus., I, 464, 1896. 



Coregonus hoyi Jordan, Man. Vert. ed. 2, 275, 1878 ; Jordan & Gilbert, Bull. 16, U. 

 S. Nat. Mus., 399, 1883 ; Smith, Bull. U. -S. F. C, XIV, 6, pi. i, fig. i, 1S95. 



Mr. Annin wrote me that the people at Canandaigua Lake told him that there 

 were large quantities of small Lake Shiners, as they are called, in the lake. A fisher- 

 man said that they are seen in immense schools at the top of the water occasion- 

 ally, and, by firing a gun loaded with shot into them, men can stun them so as to 

 pick up quite a number. They are eagerly sought after for trolling bait for the 

 Salmon Trout found in that lake. 



This species is recorded with certainty from Lake Michigan only. It is taken in 

 gill nets in deep water and, notwithstanding its small size, has become commercially 

 important. It was for the first time announced as a member of the New York 

 fauna in 1897, and the description leaves no doubt of the correctness of the identi- 



