THE FISHERIES OF ILLINOIS CXX111 



THE FISHERIES OF ILLINOIS 



Since the state and the nation maintain, in their commissions 

 of fish and fisheries, special agencies for the investigation and 

 promotion of economic ichthyology, the Natural History Survey 

 is not constructively responsible for work in this field. The 

 subject of our fisheries is, however, an essential part of the science 

 of ichthyology broadly considered a division, indeed, of ich- 

 thyological ecology, of which the reciprocal relations and inter- 

 actions of fishes and men are as legitimate and necessary a part 

 as those of fishes and any other factor of their ecological environ- 

 ment. The economic element has, consequently, been taken 

 into account in our discussion of species and the larger groups, 

 and a brief re"sume" of its principal features is evidently appro- 

 priate to this introduction. 



The distinction of Illinois as a fish-producing state is to be 

 found in its relation to the Mississippi River and some of the 

 most important branches of that stream. Bordered by the 

 main river for the whole length of its longest side, by the second 

 largest tributary of the Mississippi for 130 miles of its south- 

 eastern boundary, and by the Wabash for 198 miles on the 

 east, the state is also traversed diagonally by the Illinois River, 

 admirably adapted, by its sluggish current, by the many bottom- 

 land lakes connected with it at low water, by the extensive 

 breeding-grounds afforded to fishes during the period of the 

 spring overflow, and by the vast abundance of fish food in its 

 waters at all seasons of the year, to support an unusually large 

 and varied fish population. Illinois is consequently far in the 

 lead of all the states of the Mississippi Valley in respect to 

 river-fishery products. It markets a larger value per annum in 

 fishes taken from flowing streams than all the states immediately 

 surrounding it taken together. The total for this state in 1899 

 was $517,420, and that for Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, Indiana, 

 and Wisconsin combined was $435,137. Illinois furnishes, in- 

 deed, more than one third of the fishes sent to market from all 

 the streams of the Mississippi Valley, valued in 1899 at 

 $1,473,040. Furthermore, the Illinois River and its tributaries 



