118 Tzventy-nUith Annual Meeting 



THE SPAWNING HABITS OF THE LAKE STURGEON. 



(Acipenser rubicundus.) 



BY LIVINGSTON STONE, CAPE VINCENT, N. Y. 



The first I knew about my being- expected to present a 

 paper tlTis year to the Society on the subject of the "Spawning 

 Habits of the Lake Sturgeon,'' was on seeing in a recent issue 

 of "Forest and Stream" that I was billed to prepare such a 

 paper for this meeting. If it were not for my having been put 

 on the program I should not venture to offer anything on this 

 subject unless it were under the title of "What Little I Know 

 Aibout the Spawning Habits of the Sturgeon." 



As a correspondent wrote me recently, "the sturgeon is a 

 strange fish."' At least the Lake sturgeon, which is the subject 

 of this paper, is a strange fish. It has a strangely shaped body, a 

 strange head, strange mouth and skin, and a strange appear- 

 ance generally ; and one of the strangest things about the fish is 

 that during the same week and on the same spot you can find 

 female sturgeon with their eggs in almost every stage of develop- 

 ment. This throws us all at sea as to their time of spawning, 

 and we are not much better off in regard to their places for de- 

 positing their spawn, for if they ever have fixed spawning beds 

 where they go regularly to deposit their eggs, I can only say 

 that I never saw a fisherman yet who knew where those spawn- 

 ing beds were. 



Another strange thing about the Lake sturgeon is that the 

 fishermen never, or almost never, catch a spawning female in 

 their nets with ripe eggs in her. They catch them when they 

 are almost ready of spawn, and when they liave just spawned, 

 and also with eggs in them in all stages of development, but 

 hardly ever with ripe eggs ready to be extruded. 



The peculiarities of this strange fish have made it very difh- 



