DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL SCIENCE. 



DEEP-WATER FAUNA OF LAKE MICHIGAN. 



BY P. E. HOY, M. D., RACINE. 



At a distance of sixteen to twenty miles off Racine the 

 water in Lake Michigan is from fifty to seventy fathoms deep. 

 The bottom, at these depths, is composed of an impalpable, 

 dark-colored mud, interspersed with depressions containing 

 quantities of partially decayed leaves intermingled with the 

 muddy deposits. It is on these " mud flats " that the fisher- 

 men capture, in gill-nets, the largest and finest white-fish and 

 trout. 



The food of the white-fish had never been ascertained. In 

 order to solve this problem, I secured large quantities of the 

 stomachs of fish caught in various depths; by diluting the 

 ingesta I was enabled to determine on what the fish subsisted. 

 During these investigations I became deeply interested in the 

 new forms of animal life that swarmed in the deep water — fish 

 that never visit the shore ; crustaceans, that live only in the 

 profound depths of the lake. I discovered three species of 

 fish, four species of small crustaceans and one mollusk — all new 

 to science. The fish I sent to the Smithsonian Institute at 

 'Washington. They were placed in the hands of that accom- 

 jDlished naturalist. Prof. Theodore Gill, who described and 

 named them. 



When I sent the fish to Prof. Bau'd I asked him to whom I 

 should send the crustaceans ? Who was the best authority on 

 that branch of natural history ? His answer was we had in the 

 West the very man, the best authority in America on the 



