SHIRAS EXPEDITIONS TO WHITEFISH POINT. 139 



inches long was taken from a ])ike ten inches long. Another, smaller 

 pike had eaten some small fish that were too badly digested for identifi- 

 cation, and still another had fed upon insects. The suckers were scarce. 

 All seen were little fish in a small school. The sunfish (two taken in a 

 small bay with a muddy bottom) were the only members of the sunfish 

 family found by the writer in the Whitefish Point region. A little 

 perch, the only one caught in the river, was caught in the net with these 

 sunfish. Conditions in Shelldrake River, thus, appear to be favorable 

 for but one kind of fish, the common sculpin. The other species were 

 not thriving there and were represented b}' few or small individuals. 



LIST OF SPECIES. 



The list below contains the data on thirty species of fish represented 

 in the collections made in the Whitefish Point region by the writer. 

 Following this is a hypothetical list giving names of species whose 

 presence was not ascertained by the writer's data, but from published 

 notes on their distribution and from statements made by people living 

 in the region, the fish listed probably in some cases, possibly in others, 

 belong to the fauna of northern Chippewa County. When there was 

 opportunity to do so, color descriptions were made of fish fresh from the 

 water or from aquarium specimens. Ridgway's Color Standard and 

 Nomenclature (1912) was used in this work. Dimensions of fish are 

 stated in inches and tenths of inches. The lengths given are total ones, 

 from the tip of the snout to the tip of the caudal fin. 



1. Coregonus clwpeaformis (Mitchill). Labrador Whitefish. — White- 

 fish are abundant in Lake Superior, but they are chiefly in a zone where 

 the depth is between sixty and a hundred feet (Paul Reighard 1910). 

 This zone is close to the shore at the east end of the region, at Whitefish 

 Point, but westward it departs farther and farther from the shore and 

 is about eight miles out at Vermilion. The proximity of the area to 

 the shore at Whitefish Point makes it very available to fishermen; 

 hence the importance of the fishery there. Moore (1895) states that 

 the best whitefish grounds on Lake Superior are at Whitefish Point. 

 Goode (1884) calls attention to the importance of the fishing grounds 

 here and to the many whitefish caught and the large size of some of 

 them; he states that in seventy-four barrels of whitefish taken at one 

 time, none were under six pounds and records one sj^ecimen that weighed 

 twenty-three pounds. Mr, Robert Carlson informs the writer that 

 about thirty tons of whitefish are taken at the Point every year, and the 

 largest one that he knows of taken there weighed twenty-six pounds. 



It is known that Labrador whitefish migrate shoreward, apparently 

 to feed on insects, in the summer (Nash. 1908 and Patton 1912), and 



