rAPERS ON ZOOLOGY 139 



(Fig. 6) on the lower surfaces of stones or other objects 

 that are not in close contact with the bottom giving space 

 for the egg-laying process and for the attending male fish, 

 that remains for the most part beneath the eggs and pro- 

 tects them. The breeding season appears to be a long 

 one, my dates for finding eggs are from May 1 to August 

 26. Eigenmann ('96, p. 252) found eggs in Indiana dur- 

 ing June and the greater part of July. 



The eggs are most often found in shaded stretches of 

 large creeks where the deptli is about a foot and where 

 there is a moderate current and where the bottom is rather 

 solid with large stones on it, and these must not be firmly 

 embedded or used as crayfish shelters. I have found eggs 

 about Charleston in streams from 2^ to 40 feet wide, but 

 most often where they were from 8 to 10 feet in width. 

 Most of the stones with eggs have been in about a foot of 

 water, but I have taken them in 18 inches. Voris ('99, p. 

 233) reports eggs from water as deep as two feet. My 

 temperature readings for the breeding waters of this spe- 

 cies have been from 70 °F. to 79 °F. When stones are ab- 

 sent or their lower surfaces unavailable, the eggs may be 

 placed on lower sides of other objects. In this region, I 

 have found them on tin cans, on a metal wash basin, on a 

 half submerged barrel, on boards, pieces of bark, and once 

 on a clod of hardpan clay. The eggs are usually placed 

 very closely together in a roughly circular or oblong patch 

 with longest diameter typicallj^ 4 or 5 inches; the largest 

 observed was 10 by 4 inches. Possibly this was formed by 

 the joining of two patches, since two or more fish fre- 

 quently use the same stone. Once eight patches were 

 found under one large broad flat stone, about four feet at 

 its widest part. Ordinarily a surface six inches to a foot 

 in diameter will harbor a single patch of eggs. I have 

 found no evidence of nest building by the breeding Blunt- 

 nosed Minnows ; any excavation found may have been made 

 by a crayfish that formerly lived under the object later 

 used to hold the minnow eggs. Eigenmann ('96, p. 252) 

 says the fish keeps the vicinity of its nest clean, and Profes- 

 sor Rieghard has made similar observations as above noted. 



The parent fish watching the eggs is very dark, some- 

 times almost black and possesses a number of prominent 

 pearl organs on the snout (Forbes and Richardson '09, p. 

 121; Fowler '12, p. 471). The fish is very probably the 



