BEIEF NOTES ON FISHES. 411 



and deposited their ova, and the congregated male fish 

 were then upon the spawning-ground fertilizing these 

 deposits. Soon after, the sexes reassemble and lead a 

 restless but scarcely eventful life. The young are left 

 to shift for themselves, and to a certain extent are de- 

 voured by their parents. Professor Forbes * found but 

 one specimen in twenty-one that had eaten fishes, but can- 

 nibalistic propensities are not so uncommon here among 

 these fishes. Indeed, I find that all our shiners feed 

 more or less upon very young fishes of the same or allied 

 species. In speaking of the shiners, as a class, as carnivo- 

 rous, I think we are essentially correct, and that vegeta- 

 ble food is taken only when animal food is not readily 

 obtained, or because the two can not be dissociated. May 

 it not be that the mud found in the intestines of cypri- 

 noids was really teeming with life when swallowed, and 

 this afforded the nourishment needed by the fish ? 



The various other minnows or shiners that I find, can 

 most profitably be considered in groups, for it appears 

 that the same localities attract various species of different 

 genera. A sweep of the net will often bring up repre- 

 sentatives of several natural groups ; for these cyprinoids, 

 while nearly the same in their habits, are very different 

 in their anatomical structure. Occasionally, however, I 

 have found a pool or a little stream teeming with indi- 

 viduals of but one or two species. Notably was this true 

 when I first met with the typical pug-nosed minnows. 

 These, so alike in general appearance, prove to be two 

 distinct species, and belong to different genera. The 

 great majority were those which, in the manual, are 

 called silvery minnows which all minnows are and the 

 others blunt-nosed shiners. 



* " Illinois State Laboratory of Natural History," Bulletin No. 6, p. 84. 

 Normal, Illinois, 1883. 



