£2 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



to be found, the iuferenee is natural that tliey do not range into the deep, 

 water. 



From these observations it was evident that the white-fish were not 

 found in any abundance in the deeper waters smaller than one and one- 

 fourth pounds, audit is not until they attain about this weight that their 

 migrations into the deeper waters of the lake begin. 



From the examination of stomachs of immature fishes, the food was 

 found to be small crustaceans and insects. 



(22 1c.) Enemies of the ivhite-Jish. — The largest percentage of destruction 

 the white-fish suffers is without doubt in the ova-stage. 



The spawn-eaters of the lakes are a numerous and widely distributed 

 list of animals, including fishes, amphibians and, itis claimed, divers, and 

 ducks. The destruction of the spawn by these methods is immense, and 

 far exceeds the losses while in the stage of fry. 



The most wholesale devourer of the eggs is undoubtedly the lake-her- 

 ring. On opening the stomachs of the herring from the ponds in Detroit 

 Eiver, in November, they were found to contain the eggs of white-fisli. 

 At first it was considered possible that, as they. were confined in the 

 ponds, their eating spawn might be a matter of necessity, but later, at 

 Sandusky, their stomachs were found gorged with the ova. The herring, 

 the most numerous species inhabiting the spawning-grounds of the 

 white-fish, are without doubt the i^rincipal agents in keeping in check 

 the increasing numbers supplied from the fertilized ova. 



The suckers, sturgeon, and smaller bottom feeding-fishes are found 

 with spawn in the stomach. 



The so-called " water-lizard," MenobrancJms lateralis Say is very numer- 

 ous in some of the streams and portions of the lake-shore. Mr. George 

 Clark, of Ecorse, Mich., had a minnow-seine fitted to the bag of a sweep- 

 seine, and at one haul took two thousand of the " water-lizards." Estimat- 

 ing the extent that the net had passed over, he calculated the average 

 number of lizards to each square rod to be four. He says, further, in one 

 of the Detroit papers, " The lizards were so gorged with white-fish spawn 

 that when they were thrown on the shore, hundreds of eggs would fly 

 out of their mouths. * * * Some of the larger lizards 

 would devour the whole spawning of a white-fish in a day or twoj and 

 when we consider that these reptiles are feeding upon eggs from No- 

 vember till April, some idea may be formed of their vast capacity for 

 destruction." 



Mr. Browne, of Grand Haven, Mich., states that some three years ago 

 an epidemic seemed to prevail among the Menohranclii in Grand E-iver, 

 in the month of June and that their dead carcasses were washed ashore 

 by hundreds, so that they lined the banks of the river, and the mill-men 

 were obliged to throw the bodies off into the current, to be carried down 

 stream to prevent the offensive stench that was wafted into the mills 

 from the decaying remains. 



A fisherman at Evauston, 111., a few years ago had nine hundred 



