No. I.] GAR-PIKE AND STURGEON. 3 



Columbia College, who had undertaken to study the Gar-pike 

 in the lines of experimental embryology. The themes of the 

 present paper are arranged as follows: 



I. The breeding and feeding habits of Lepidosteus. 



II. The early development of Lepidosteus, — more accu- 

 rately, that beginning with segmentation and ending with 

 establishment of organs. 



III. The early development of Acipenser, parallel in discus- 

 sion with that of Lepidosteus. 



IV. A general comparison of the early stages of these kin- 

 dred forms, and a discussion of the developmental relations of 

 Ganoid, Elasmobranch, and Teleost, 



I. Mode of Occurrence of the Gar-pike; its Feeding 



Habits and Spawning. 



The spawning habits of the Gar-pike, Lepidosteus osseus, 

 have already been recorded by Garman ('78), Beard ('89), and 

 Mark ('90). Their observations had in all cases been made at 

 Black Lake, St. Lawrence Co., N. Y., the locality which has 

 now acquired a well-merited reputation as a spawning region 

 of this remarkable fish. To their accounts the writer would 

 add the following notes collected at the same locality during 

 the present season as preliminary to his discussion of the fish's 

 early development. 



The Gar-pikes of Black Lake are exceedingly abundant, and 

 on account of their peculiar breeding habits there is little diffi- 

 culty in securing their developmental stages. For several 

 weeks during the spawning season they appear in shallow 

 water, often in great numbers, and may be observed as they 

 deposit their eggs. Matured fish, to yield eggs and milt for 

 artificial fertilization, are then to be readily taken. 



The general disappearance of the fish shortly after spawning 

 is doubtless the reason that so little is known of its usual life 

 habits. Garman states that after the spawning season the 

 fish are " seldom seen, remain in the deeper parts of the lake 

 away from shore, and are more or less nocturnal in habits. 



