144 ILLINOIS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE 



circular, cleaned areas about eight inches in diameter and 

 all in a little less than a foot of water. The eggs were 

 attached to gravel except in one case where they were on 

 small, pea-size lumps of clay. I have found none on roots 

 here as at Walnut Lake, in Michigan (Hankinson 

 ■08, p. 211). Hubbs ('19, p. 144), reports this species using 

 willow roots for its eggs with no indication of a nest. 



All nests found by me have been located by the presence 

 of the attending fish over them. These have all been very 

 similarly marked with dorsal, caudal and anal fins bor- 

 dered with white and with the ventral fins nearly all white. 

 All these nesting fish were very probably males. They 

 stay close over the nest and show little shyness, and I have 

 never found one defending eggs with much vigor. 

 Hubbs ('19, p. 144) notes a nesting fish permitting itself 

 to be handled and only gently biting at his fingers when he 

 touched the eggs; and it took earthworms from his hands 

 repeatedly. The sunfish that I have seen over eggs in lakes 

 and ponds have been very well concealed by their mark- 

 ings. The light border of the dorsal fin is easily mistaken 

 for a submerged grass blade or piece of rush and distracts 

 attention from the sombre fish form below it. The spawn- 

 ing act was noted once and this at Indian Creek over the 

 nest found on July 1, 1907. Here the male was about a 

 third smaller than the female. 



Very little appears to have been written on the life- 

 history of this species. Dyche ('14, p. 115) gives a brief 

 account of its spawning in hatchery ponds in the state of 

 Kansas. Tlie writer describes their nesting in Walnut 

 Lake, Michigan (Hankinson, '08, p. 211). 



Lcpomis megalotis (Rafinesque), Long-eared Sunfish. 



This sunfish in this region is confined almost entirely to 

 the large streams, where it nests. Many are in the pond 

 on the Normal School campus, and one season, 1907, they 

 were seen nesting there, and they have undoubtedly bred 

 there during other seasons. In the streams there is no evi- 

 dent migration, and the height of the breeding 

 appears to be about the middle of June; my dates are 

 May 25 to June 17, but they undoubtedly nest much later. 

 In the Normal School pond, they were nesting in July and 

 August, as late as August 23. In northern Indiana. 



