288 Rousczrlt Wild Life .huials 



small lanii)rey eels from i-6 inches in length. We disposed of as many of them 

 as possible. Several game protectors were here at the time, and every one said he 

 never saw such a sight." Bean ("12, p. 189) reports that the "lampreys spawn in 

 creeks near Oneida Lake in May or June. ... In 191 1, the Lake Lamprey 

 was spawning in Frederick Creek at Constantia, aliout May 25th, cnntinuing for 

 one week. It usually spawns in June." 



Gage ('93, p. 445) was not able to determine satisfactorily the fate of Lake 

 Lampreys after spawning. Some have been of the opinion that like salmon and 

 eels they die; or that they may return again to the lake, although, as Gage sug- 

 gested, the atrophied condition of the digestive system makes this improbable. 

 Surface ('99, p. 224) records finding large numbers of dead lampreys in the pools 

 of the streams. 



Habitat. The habitat of the lamprey varies with its development. After hatch- 

 ing, probably a month is spent in the nest, then it changes its habitat from the 

 shoal to the quiet sandy margins of the stream. Surface ('99. p. 202) describes 

 the larval habitat as follows: "These larvae (the indistinguishable Brook and Lake 

 Lampreys) can be found in almost any sand-bank or drift of dirt and debris from 

 near the source of the stream (the highest spawning beds) to its very mouth, 

 having been carried far below the lowest spawning beds by the high water. Their 

 food is most abundant in the concave side of a turn in the stream where the cur- 

 rent causes a whirlpool and quiet water, and where there is a consequent deposit 

 of sediment and fine organic material. They appear to greatly prefer such a place 

 to a bare sand-bank, doubtless because their food is more abundant, where the 

 finely comminuted organic material is also deposited with the mud and sand." 

 The conditions on the muddy bottom of the stripping pond at Constantia should 

 also be recalled. Here they live in their burrows. After functional transformation 

 is complete they migrate down stream to the lake and assume the predacious life, 

 feeding upon the larger fishes until sexual maturity, when they again return to 

 the streams to spawn. The spawning stream used by these lampreys is Frederick 

 Creek, tributary of Scriba Creek at Constantia. Others we did not locate. 



Food. The food of the larvae, according to Gage ('93, p. 457), "consists of 

 microscopic organisms separated in some way from the constant stream of water 

 drawn into the combined pharyngeal and branchial chamber." It is thus probably 

 a plankton-feeder. Surface ('99, p. 192) speaks of it as "feeding in the larval 

 state upon minute organisms (especially diatoms) which live in the organic sedi- 

 ment beneath the water." He does not, however, give the detailed evidence for 

 this o])inion. Whether or not food is taken during the period of transformation 

 is not known. Gage ('93. p. 438) has shown that the digestive system previous to 

 the breeding season atrophies within two weeks, and no food is taken during the 

 breeding season. The food of the adult, outside of the breeding season, was solely 

 blood, according to his observations. Dawson ('05, p. 96), however, found in the 

 stomach of a December specimen bits of .striated muscle about 12 mm long, a gill 

 and a rib of a .small teleost fish. The gill was i cm long and bore filaments 5 mm 

 in length ; the rib was 2 cm long. It is impossible to tell whether the lamprey came 

 by this small fi.sh directly or from the intestine of a larger fish which served as its 

 prey. In anv case, it apjicars that the attached P. luariiius unicolor may feed not 

 onlv on blond but nn more solid tissue. 



