March, 1963 



Larimore & Smith: Fishes of Champaign County 



347 



from Champaign and Urbana were car- 

 ried by two gravity-flow sewers that dis- 

 charged directly into the lower Boneyard 

 creek and into the nearby West Branch 

 proper. There was some additional pol- 

 lution from stables, the power plant, and 

 a few small industries, but the collections 

 of Forbes & Richardson indicate that the 

 fish population in the West Branch had 

 not been seriously affected, as a variety 

 of species, similar to that which might be 

 found in nearby streams unaffected by 

 pollution, was present, table 24. 



A vivid description of conditions in the 

 Boneyard and the West Branch of the 

 Salt Fork for about two decades fol- 

 lowing the work of Forbes & Richardson 

 was given by Baker (1922:170-85). By 



1918, the Bone\'ard was apparently barren 

 of clean-water organisms. The West 

 Branch from Urbana to St. Joseph was 

 laden with masses of decomposing matter 

 made up of foul-water algae and protozoa, 

 and its bottom was inhabited by slime 

 worms. Even below the junction of the 

 West Branch and the East Branch, con- 

 ditions were septic, and clean-water life 

 did not appear for a distance of several 

 miles downstream. 



In 1917, legislation permitted the or- 

 ganization of the Urbana-Champaign San- 

 itary District with the result that, by 

 1924, the sewage from both cities passed 

 through a disposal plant. Although the 

 disposal plant served to improve conditions 

 in the West Branch, a high level of pol- 



Table 24. — Numbers of collections in which each of 22 species was taken in three sections 

 of the West Branch and below by Forbes & Richardson (FR), Thompson & Hunt (TH), and 

 Larimore & Smith (LS). No species not taken by Larimore & Smith is included. Figures in 

 parentheses below FR, TH, and LS indicate numbers of collections made, except that they do 

 not include collections made by Thompson & Hunt or Larimore & Smith subsequent to their 

 initial visits. Species taken in the subsequent visits and at no other time are indicated by +. 



•Presumed to represent only this species at these stations, although name used in early surveys was known to be 

 a composite of two or more species. 



