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The Destruction of a School of Blue Gills. By Thomas Larc^e. 



/ 



On August 14, 1896, Mr. A. .J. Chapman, while standing on tlie bridge across 

 the channel between the main lai^e and the backwater bay of Wel)ster Lake, 

 noticed immense schools of Blue Gills {Lepomis P((llidu.<) — among which were 

 but very few other fish — passing toward the main lake. On the days just preced- 

 ing this the temperature had risen the highest of any other period of the sum- 

 mer, and Mr. Chapman states that the watei'-gates of the grist mill at Boston, Ind., 

 a few miles up the Tippecanoe River, had been closed, and caused the water be- 

 low to fall to a lower level than usual. None of the water of this part of the lake 

 is more than five or six feet in depth, and much of it much shallower. The wa- 

 ter became very much heated, and if this is the correct explanation of this move- 

 ment, these fish can not endure a great change in temperature, hence migrated to 

 the deeper water below. By opening the water-gates, a current being re-estab- 

 lished and the lake rising to its usual level, the fish attempted to return to their 

 usual feeding ground, and a large part of them lost their way in the lily-pads and 

 spatterdock which line either side of the narrow, winding channel, and, coming 

 into the shallow water near the shore on the east side, just below the bridge, were 

 killed by the great heat of the water there. 



Four days later, when I visited this place and found the dead fish and re- 

 ceived the substance of the above explanation from Mr. Chapman, the margin of 

 the lake for about ten rods was thickly covered with dead fish. Among them, as 

 before stated, were very few other fish — one or two bass and a catfish being all 

 that I found. There was a considerable uniformity in size, ranging from three to 

 five or six inches in length. They had been fiy-blown, and were almost entirely 

 destroyed, excepting bones, scales and skin, and the road at a distance of a dozen 

 feet was literally covered with maggots. The stench was great. 



I have no better explanation to ofTer than the one given above, but noticed 

 on entering the channel, almost a half mile below, a film on the water, such as 

 one sees where organic matter decays, and noticed an odor different from that 

 near the fish. In the water were masses of decaying bladderwort ( Utricnlaria vul- 

 r/aris), which might ,have been killed by the heat, and its presence in tlie water 

 might have caused the migration. 



