;^8 (lYPRINID^. OF EASTERN C^ANADA. 



3. Notemigonus chrysoleucus ( ^Nlitcli. ) Jordan. 



(iolden Sliinev. 



The ''Pond-Fish,'" as it is frequently called, is widely dis- 

 tributed all over eastern Canada, and was the only fresh-water 

 fish found on P. E. Island by Roy McLean Vanwart and the 

 writer, while making an investigation of its fishes and batrachia 

 in 1896. It occurs at Afton Lake, near Mount Stewart. No in- 

 formation could be had of the time and manner of its introduc- 

 tion, nor was its presence known to the people of the vicinity ; 

 and, as the lake is only a few acres in extent, without affluents 

 and with an outlet only during spring freshets, it is just possible 

 some admirer of this handsome species planted it there long ago. 

 Be that as it may, the absence of fresh-water fishes from an is- 

 land so convenient to the coasts of New Brunswick and Nova 

 Scotia and lying in the general line of bird migration, argues 

 strongly against the theory of the dispersal of fishes through 

 bird agency. Even where lakes and ponds, belonging to differ- 

 ent but neighboring river-basins, are the summer home of fish- 

 and ova-eating birds, the results appear to be no way otherwise. 

 In New Brunswick the St. John River, with its numerous branches 

 and lakes, seems favorably disposed to receive forms from the 

 contiguous headwaters and lakes of the Androscoggin and other 

 Maine rivers ; but there is no evidence of transmission by such 

 means having occurred. It is true that within recent years the 

 Eastern Pickerel, Esox reticidntus LeS., a comuKm fish in the 

 Maine rivers, made its appearance in the St. John ; but inquiry 

 showed that it had been artificially introduced a few years be- 

 fore, into the Maduxnakik, a branch of that river. 



The Golden Shiner is said by American ichthyologists to 

 have thirteen anal raA^s, and many New^ Brunswick and Nova 

 Scotia specimens show that number ; but the stock of Lac a 

 Canard and ^lurphy's Lake in the basin of the Grand Pab(^s, its 

 only station on the Gaspe peninsula, has uniformly tireire rays. 

 There, too, the fish are, as a rule, much smallei-. 



