$2 FISHES OF ILLINOIS 



This species, with its two varieties, extends throughout the 

 Great Lake region; northeast to the St. Lawrence and the Connecti- 

 cut rivers, and to the St. Johns River, in Xew Brunswick; southeast 

 to Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida; southward to the Gulf, 

 southwest to the Rio Grande, and northward to the Dakotas. The 

 northern representatives of the species belong to the variety 

 oblongus and the southern to sucetta. 



In this state it is widely distributed in large and small streams, 

 and in the small lakes of McHenry county, in northeastern Illinois; 

 but it is much the most abundant in the eastern part of the state in 

 the drainage of the Wabash and the Ohio rivers, and in the head- 

 waters of the Sangamon and of the Kaskaskia adjacent to these. 

 A line drawn through the middle of the state from north to south 

 but swerving slightly to the west below central Illinois, has 101 of 

 our localities for this species to the east of it and but 8 to the west. 

 It is essentially a creek species, occurring proportionally five times as 

 frequently in our collections from creeks as from rivers, large or 

 small, and eight times as frequently as from lakes and ponds. 



The chub-sucker is a bottom feeder, and has the habit of sup- 

 porting itself on the bottom, like the darter, by means of its paired 

 fins. In ordinary seasons it spawns in central Illinois in April and 

 May. Ripe males were taken at Havana April 1(1, 1809, and fe- 

 males with ripe ovaries from March 20 to April 15. This fish bites 

 readily at a small hook, but its flesh is bony and without flavor, and 

 owing to its small size the species has no commercial value. 



Genus MINYTREMA Jordan 

 (spotted suckers) 



Body elongate, compressed; mouth inferior; upper lip freely pro- 

 tractile; lower lip plicate, forming an angle posteriorly; posterior 

 fontanelle large; supraorbital bone present; suborbital bones well 

 developed; pharyngeal bones as in Erimyzon, but the teeth somewhat 

 coarser; vertebra? 39; thoracic ribs 17; dorsal rays about 12; scales 

 rather large, nearlv equal all over the body; lateral line interrupted in 

 adults, more or less imperfect in half-grown specimens and entirely 

 obsolete in the young; air-bladder with two chambers. Fresh waters 

 of the United States; one species known. 



