THE PLANKTON ENVIRONMENT IN THE CONNECTICUT LAKES. 



By A. A. DooLiTTLE. 



The present chapter records observations made at the headwaters 

 of the Connecticut River, in the Connecticut Lakes, upon the environ- 

 ment of their minute suspended animal and vegetable organisms. 

 The exhaustive determination of all the plankton forms collected 

 and the study of them as to quantity, life cycle, distribution, and 

 reaction to environment must be continued and reported upon later." 



FIRST LAKE. 



The Avater of First Lake was examined thoroughly during the 

 summer of 1904 for its plankton elements, and samples were taken 

 from the Second and Third lakes and tributary streams and ponds 

 as opportunity offered. At First Lake during the unfrozen season 

 the prevailing winds are from the south and west, and where they 

 have av long sweep they have piled up beaches of sand or gravel. The 

 open space is so great that waves of considerable power are made, 

 sufficient, at least, to prevent the establishment of any plants in the 

 shallow bottoms off these shores, and the formation of a harbor for 

 littoral forms of plankton. Two places on the northern shore are, 

 however, protected, partly by points of land and partly by a very 

 gradually shelving bottom, so that some aquatic vegetation has be- 

 come established. All the shores protected from the Avest or south sup- 

 port Avater plants, and those protected from both directions much 

 more. The other shores present too broad a belt of sand or barren 



<* Assistance in the determination of tlie aquatic species is gratefully acliuowl- 

 edged as follows : 



Bryoiihyt(i.~yii\ E. B. Chamberlain, of New Yorli City. 



Angiospermw.— Mr. E. L. Morris, Brooklyn Institute Museum, Brooklyn. 



Infusoria.— Br. Geo. T. Moore, Chester, Pa. 



Hirudinea.— Dr. J. Percy Moore, University of Pennsylvania. 



Insecta.—Dr. A, E. Schwarz and Dr. D. W. Coquillet, and Mr. H. S. Barber 

 and Miss Evelyn G. Mitchell of the National Museum. 



Mollusca.~Dr. Paul Bartsch, Smithsonian Institution. 



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