24 FISHES OF THE CONNECTICUT LAKES. 
This sucker derives many of its local names from its color, appear- 
ance and habitat, being variously known as “ black sucker,” ‘ white 
sucker,” “ brassy sucker,” “ barvel,” ‘“ barbel,” ‘“ brook sucker,” and 
“lake sucker.” In North America it has an extensive range, being 
recorded as follows: Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the 
Great Lakes, south to Georgia and Missouri, west to Colorado and 
Montana, and northward to Ungava Bay. — 
It is the larger of the two suckers occurring in the Connecticut 
lakes; we have one specimen from Second Lake measuring 16.20 
inches in total length. It occurs in all of the waters of this region. 
It inhabits all kinds of waters from large lakes to small ponds and 
great rivers to rivulets, and of course varies correspondingly in 
appearance and size. Its food is usually minute animal and vegetable 
organisms, though it does not reject larger objects. Young fish have 
been found in its stomach and it feeds largely upon the eggs of other 
fish when it can get them. Young fish 1.37 to 1.62 inches long from 
Indian Stream, August 4, were found to be feeding upon diatoms, 
desmids, and black fly larvae. It will frequently take a baited hook, 
and sometimes is so eager for the bait that it causes annoyance to 
anglers. It has been caught on a spoon and on the artificial fly, but 
rarely (only once in our experience). When hooked a large sucker 
fights vigorously for a short time, then succumbs. 
So far as known it is of little use to any water of which it is a deni- 
zen, unless it be by eating larval insects. As a food fish it is not of 
much value, though it is eaten and is said to be of good flavor when 
taken from cold waters, but rather bony. 
Young suckers have not very often been found in other fishes’ 
stomachs, though occasionally a cusk contains one or-more. A guide 
at Second Connecticut Lake informed us that when they were allowed 
to use “ night lines ” sucker bait was considered the best for “ lunge.” 
This sucker ascends streams in the spring and early summer to 
spawn, when in some places it is caught in large quantities with spear 
or dip net to feed the hogs and fowl, or to use as fertilizer. It usually 
runs at night, sometimes returning to the lake before daylight, some- 
times hiding away during the daytime in deep holes, under banks, or 
overhanging bushes. The spawning season in Connecticut Lake 
water had passed before July 1. Like the other species mentioned, 
adults of this species only a few inches long also occur in small bodies 
of water, and one of this character was described by Mather as Catos- 
tomus utawana. But, unlike the longnose sucker, the size varies with 
the size of the stream or lake in which it occurs. 
