Lake Maxinkuckee, Physical and Biological Survey 123 



as the removal of protecting trees, opening the lake more to the 

 sweep of winds, conduce to the dissemination of the under-water 

 plants. It is perhaps due to this, and perhaps to other less evident 

 causes, that the lake has become markedly more weedy than it was 

 at the beginning of our study. To cite a specific example, the 

 shallow water just off the north shore of Long Point, which was 

 once over comparatively barren sand, now supports a dense and 

 luxuriant growth of weeds, especially Philotria. It is quite pos- 

 sible that another very active contributing cause is to be found in 

 the increasing scarcity of waterfowl. Formerly, immense flocks of 

 coots and ducks made great raids on some of the water-plants, 

 first on Vallisneria, and then, when that was gone, upon Chara and 

 other weeds. The birds uprooted the plants before they ripened or 

 set seed, so that the long, heavily seeded fruits of Vallisneria, once 

 almost a curiosity in the lake, are now abundant, due, in part at 

 least, to the greater scarcity of water-fowl. Not only did the 

 ducks uproot the plants, but they also ate as a choice delicacy the 

 tender stolons upon which the plant relied for vegetative propaga- 

 tion, and in the early winter, after the ducks had finished their 

 raids, little or none of the Vallisneria was to be found. 



So conspicuous and apparent is the increased weediness of the 

 lake that a local report has gained circulation that the "Fish Com- 

 mission has planted the lake full of weeds for fish-food, and that 

 as a result the fish are so well fed that they will not bite, much 

 to the detriment of good fishing"! 



As compared with other lakes of the state, Lake Maxinkuckee 

 is not so weedy as some of the shallower lakes which warm well 

 to the bottom and have all their bottom area at such depths that 

 plants can thrive, but it appears to become more weedy year by 

 year. It is somewhat more weedy than lakes with a smaller area of 

 shallow water, such as Tippecanoe Lake. Its condition as regards 

 quantity of vegetation is well expressed by Dr. Scovell who, in 

 discussing the origin of the marl says : "Out to a depth of 25 feet 

 the lake abounds in vegetation. Over hundreds of acres the vege- 

 tation is as rank as in a field of heavy clover, the vegetation con- 

 sisting largely of different species of Chara and Potamogeton, with 

 Vallisneria, Philotria, Ceratophyllum, Naias and Myriophyllum in 

 abundance." 



The comparison with a field of clover suggests at once the im- 

 portance of the vegetation as soil builders of the bottom, but in this 

 respect it is to some extent misleading, inasmuch as in the case of 

 the Chara and the other plants in deeper water, the dense patches 

 seen year after year are the same, not decaying and being annually 



