Osburn. — Game Fish Conditions in Ohio 355 



Messrs. Turner, Wickliff and Osburn devoted their time to 

 the study of fishes and their food; Kraatz to collecting the 

 invertebrates, especially insect larvse and Crustacea ; and Tiffany 

 to the collection and study of the algae. 



Naturally, most of our material remains unworked at 

 present, as our field operations kept us on the move to such an 

 extent that often little could be done except to preserve material 

 and to make general notes. Microscopes, however, were taken 

 along and when we had occasional opportunity, use was made 

 of them in the study of stomach contents of the young fish, 

 material in the plankton, and so forth. 



For the fish collecting, fine meshed seines of 1/8 to 1/4 

 inch mesh, about twenty-five or thirty feet long, were used. 

 For a good part of the work, the middle or bag portion of the 

 seine was overlaid with cheese cloth, so that very small organ- 

 isms were captured. A twenty-five foot seine of this type is 

 about all that two men care to handle, even in still water, but 

 it is astonishing what an amount of material can be taken under 

 favorable conditions. The material brought in by the seine 

 was worked over for invertebrates and algse in addition to 

 fishes. Messrs. Kraatz and Tiffany also made use of dipnets 

 and townets in the collection of invertebrates and algse. Tem- 

 perature records were also made. 



Ohio is an exceptionally well watered state, especially in 

 rivers and creeks of suitable size for the small-mouth bass, so 

 it was manifestly impossible for us to cover the whole state in 

 one summer. As a matter of fact we made investigations in 

 twenty lakes and reservoirs and parts of six river systems 

 mostly in the central and northern parts of the state. Usually 

 two or three days were spent in a place, but two weeks were 

 given early in the season to Buckeye Lake, situated near the 

 geographical center of the state, to get a good basis for the 

 comparison and more rapid study of the lakes visited later. 

 Many of the smaller lakes of Ohio are now privately owned, 

 or in the possession of fishing clubs to the exclusion of the 



