THE FOOD AND GAME FISHES OF NEW YORK. 



279 



found from Canada to Florida and westward to Montana. Covering such a wide 

 range of territory, the species is naturally variable, and has been described over 

 and over again by many authorities under a great variety of names. The male of 

 this sucker in spring has a faint rosy stripe along the middle of the side. The 

 young are brownish in color and somewhat mottled and have a dark median band 

 or a series of large blotches. The adults are light olive varying to paler and some- 

 times darker; sides silvery. 



The species reaches a length of 22 inches, and a weight of 5 pounds. It is a 

 very common inhabitant of ponds and streams of the lowlands, and a small race 

 occurs in certain cold mountain streams in the Adirondack region, where it is 

 dwarfed in size and changed in color, but does not differ in essential characters. 

 Dr. Rothrock also obtained a mountain race of this sucker in Twin Lakes, Col., at 

 an elevation of 9,500 feet above the sea level. 



The Common Sucker is a very indifferent food fish in the estimation of most 



•'-^ 



COMMON SrCKICR. 



people, but, when taken from cold waters and in its best condition, its flesh is very 

 palatable. It takes the hook readily when baited \vith common earth worms. 



Dr. Richardson says : 



" Its food consists chiefly of soft insects, but in one I found the fragments of a 

 fresh-water shell. It is singularly tenacious of life, and may be frozen and thawed 

 again without being killed." 



Dr. Meek found this species abundant throughout the entire Cayuga Lake basin, 

 where it is known as the Common White Sucker. 



Dr. Evermann in his catalogues of the fishes of Lake Ontario, taken in 1894, 

 mentions tliis sucker from the following localities: Stony Creek, Black River, Mud 

 Creek, Cape Vincent, mouth Salmon River, Chaumont River, creek at I'ultneyville, 

 mouth Little Salmon Creek, Sandy Creek, Long Pond, Stony Island, Lakeview Hotel, 

 7 miles northeast of Oswego, and Marsh Creek. In the St. Lawrence River basin he 

 and Barton A. Bean obtained the young in Racket River, Norfolk, N. Y., July 18, 



