124 PAPERS ON ZOOLOGY OF MICHIGAN. 



seen to dash in where' small fish were schooling near the shore. In four 

 places, there are unusual conditions, near the mouths of the three 

 streams draining the marsh and where there is a broad sand flat free of 

 pebbles and debris, a short distance west of Vermilion (Station 5). 

 Here a person can wade out several hundred feet before reaching water 

 waist deep. The mouths of streams appeared to have no special at- 

 traction for shoal fish except that of Vermilion Creek, which is probably 

 due to kitchen wastes thrown in it a short distance up stream from its 

 mouth The shoal here is called Station 1 . Many small fish were ob- 

 served at times about the entering water. The following species were 

 collected at this station: *nine-spined stickleback, lake herring, common 

 sucker, common perch, common sculpin, common whitefish, brook trout, 

 spot-tail minnow, long-nosed dace, and brook stickleback. 



The little herring were in large, compact schools, and the whitefish 

 were associated with them. The common suckers and the nine-spined 

 sticklebacks were both numerous, and each species schooled by itself 

 with a few individuals of one often in large schools of the other. The 

 perch associated little with other species but were solitary or in little 

 companies. The sculpins lived on the bottom among the pebbles, and 

 there were probably many more of them at Station 1 than the col- 

 lections revealed since it was difficult to catch them with a seine. Small 

 burbots were apparently for the same reason poorly represented in col- 

 lections. The brook sticklebacks and spot-tailed minnows and long- 

 nosed dace were all very scarce. 



Over the large submerged sand flat, Station 5, thousands of young 

 herring and nine-spined sticklebacks schooled. A few young whitefish, 

 suckers, and perch were also here ; the first closely associated with young 

 herring and the other two were chiefly by themselves. 



Pebble-covered shoals appeared to be avoided by all the shoal fish 

 except the bottom forms — sculpins and burbots. Often immense 

 schools of sticklebacks were seen just off the pebble zone and not moving 

 over it. 



The main food of these little shoal fish appears to be entomostracans, 

 chironomid larvae, and adults of various insects that fall into the water, 

 and filamentous algae {Ulothrix zonata). 



Beach Ponds. 



Upon the Lake Superior shore, there are a number of small bodies of 

 water, some only temporary, and formed in depressions (Plate XIII) 

 by the waves during storms and some larger and formed by the damming 

 of the small streams. The latter are the only ones of interest here 



*In the lists of fish given in this habitat discussion, the species are named, as far as possible, 

 in the order of apparent abundance, the best represented one first. 



