202 Fortieth Annual Meeting 



the same depth, near three feet. The other sunfish men- 

 tioned were nesting in water less than two feet deep. As in 

 other parts of the lake, minnows of the rush zone have a 

 relation to the other fish of the habitat which is important. 

 They could be seen congregating about and within almost 

 every black bass, rock bass, or sunfish nest after the eggs, 

 which they were seen to eat and which were found in the 

 stomachs of some of the minnows caught from these nests. 

 Attending fish differed greatly in their abilities to keep min- 

 nows from their eggs, but in a very few cases were they suc- 

 cessful. These egg-eating minnows all belonged to two 

 species as far as our observations went, the blunt-nosed and 

 straw-colored minnow, which were by far the most abun- 

 dant and the most generally distributed minnows in the lake ; 

 and the two were closely associated, schooling together 

 freely. Nests of some of the smaller fishes were found in 

 shallow water. Blunt-nosed minnows were laying their 

 eggs on the lower sides of flat stones where these were 

 numerous. Several nests of Johnny darters {Bolcosoma 

 nigrnni) were also found in like situations and also two of 

 the miller's thumb (Cottits ictalops). People familiar with 

 the lake say that whitefish come in large numbers to a cer- 

 tain broad expanse of gravel shoal every fall. If this be 

 true, the shoreward movement on the part of the fish is in 

 all probability for breeding purposes. 



There were some parts of the rush zone so located that 

 conditions were especially favorable for plant growth, and 

 contained much aquatic vegetation of varied character. The 

 principal plants found in the water here were water lilies 

 {Nymphaea and Castalia), pondweeds, stoneworts, Myrio- 

 phylhim, Ceratophyllum, Philotria, Naias, bladderworts 

 (Utricularia), water crowfoot (Batrachium), water moss 

 (Hypnitm), duckweeds {Lemna and Spirodela), and fila- 

 mentous alg?s of several kinds. About the margins of 

 these places or in very shallow water in other parts of them, 

 there were commonly found bulrushes, sedges, cattails 

 (Typha), pickerel weed (Pontederia), and swamp loose- 



