100 Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 



THE WORMS 



Our notes on this group are few and very unsatisfactory. We 

 give here only such of them as may possess some value. 



The attention we were able to give to these forms was so little 

 that we are unable to say much regarding their relative or actual 

 abundance, their distribution, or their relation to the biology of 

 the lake. 



Flat- worms or Planarians, small, soft, flat objects, gray above, 

 white below, and oval in outline, were common on rocks and 

 among weeds in the lake. In certain material (Vorticella, etc.) 

 obtained near Norris Inlet, they were quite common. They were 

 often abundant on Ceratophyllum also. They were so soft that 

 they often pulled apart when attempts were made to remove them 

 from the rocks. 



Small pinkish parasites (probably a species of Distomum), re- 

 sembling minute leeches, were found quite common in the stoni- 

 achs of fishes, particularly the Straw Bass {Microptenis salmoides) 

 and the Skipjack (Labidesthes siccidus) . Usually during the 

 winter the stomachs of these fishes contained little or no food, 

 but in most cases from one to several of these parasites were found 

 in each. 



Round-worms, resembling Ascaris, are frequent intestinal para- 

 sites of the snakes of this region, and one small form was found 

 in the intestine of a mussel. 



Tapeworms were almost invariably present in the several shrews 

 {Blarina brevicatida) examined. They were also common in the 

 yello^ perch and walleyed pike, and practically every dogfish 

 (Amia calva) examined was heavily loaded with them. Many duck 

 stomachs examined, especially those of the ruddy duck, contained 

 from a few to many tapeworms. 



AnglewoiTns or fishworms are not abundant in this region. 

 The country about the lake is chiefly sandy, a soil not favorable to 

 angleworms. At the edges of ditches, marshes and woodland 

 ponds, where the soil is a black loam with some admixture of clay 

 and decaying vegetation, a rather small species of Lumbricus is 

 fairly abundant. Fishermen who know these places are usually 

 able to secure all they need for bait. The farmers and farmers' 

 boys and the boys of the village are the ones who make most use 

 of fishworms in their angling. 



On December 7 (1904), worms which resembled angleworms 

 were observed in considerable numbers coiled up under a sub- 

 merged water-soaked board at Long Point, where they evidently 

 were passing the winter. These worms, however, possessed no 



