458 Roosevelt Wild Life Annals 



by one or more males, usually by many. She continues for some time to flee in a 

 tortuous course back and forth through the group in its neighborhood. The 

 female finally settles to the bottom and a male takes position over her with his 

 pelvic fins clasping her head and his tail at the side of hers. A rapid vibration of 

 the tail, pectoral and pelvic fins of both fish then follows and lasts about four 

 seconds. This sends backward a whirl of sand and excavates a little pit in the 

 sand beneath the fish. During this time, the eggs are emitted and fertilized and 

 are usually buried in the sand, some in the pit, others behind it. Each egg is 

 weighted by a coating of adhering sand grains. The spawning pair is usually 

 enveloped by a group of supernumerary males, which are attempting to supplant 

 the pairing male. When the spawning is completed, the spawning fish leave the pit 

 or at least the female does so. She repeats the spawning in many other pits. 

 When the spawning is finished at a pit the supernumerary males (and perhaps the 

 pairing male) at once surround the pit and devour such eggs as they can get. The 

 eggs were found in their stomachs. The eggs and young receive no care from 

 their parents, but these, when the sjiawning period is ended, go into deeper water 

 and are not again seen." 



Eigenmann ('95, p. 252) found tlie s]iecies spawning on May 30 in ndrthtTn 

 Indiana; a single ripe female was taken liy him on June 25. 



Habitat. Our many collectiims of this species make it very evident that in 

 Oneida Lake it prefers stony bottoms, at least in shallow water. The carpet of 

 algae that grows over stony bottoms in places seems to favor it. The fish. was. 

 however, found very generally distributed on the shoals of the lake, often on sandy 

 bottom and sometimes on muddy bottom. Mr. Dillenbeck informed us that it also 

 occurs in deep water, wherever the bottom is stony. We found them in streams 

 near the lake, and they were abundant in Black Creek at Cleveland (No. 480) 

 and in Douglas Creek (No. 413), in June, 1916. They are frequently found in 

 lakes where they are more frequently seen than other darters (Evermann. 'ni. 

 p. 350). Reighard ('isa, p. 104; '15, pp. 238, 242, 245) records tluni fnmi 

 Douglas Lake, where they are rarely seen and where they appear to live in the 

 deeper waters. Some were noted in three <ir four feet of water, near vegetation, 

 and were found breeding in June nn sand bottom in a foot or less of water. 

 Reighard considers the fish to be a ])art of the vegetation community. McCormick 

 ('92, p. 29) finds it very abundant among the stoneworts that carpet Sandusky 

 Bay and Put-in-l'.aw Forbes and Richardson ('09, p. 282) in Illinois found it 

 relatively most almmlant in medium sized rivers, and in creeks next, in larger 

 rivers, lakes, sloni^lis and ponds it was much less common. They ctmsider it not 

 very particular as to clioice of localities and found it entering turbid w .iters freely : 

 but it is not a swift water species, according to these writers. 



Food. Forbes (Forbes and Richardson, '09, p. 283: Forbes. "So. p. jS ) 

 found about one-third of the food to be crustaceans, mainly Entomostraca. and the 

 remainder chiefly CliiroiKuuiis larvae. .May-flies. Cori.va, mollusks, and algae. Baker 

 ('16, ]). 194) examined the stomach contents of six Manitou Darters from Oneida 

 Lake, finding about two-thirds of the foo(l to be crustaceans (Amphipods, Cope- 

 pods, dadocera and Decajioda) : the iTmaindrr was insects (Chironoinus larvae. 



