364 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



as far as recollected, was silvery, without spots or bands. These 

 remarks are hardly justified at all by my own observations, as Dr. 

 Abbott's fish was a fully-developed breeding-male. These are most 

 certainly as gorgeously attired as described by himself long ago and 

 in my notes above. At other times of the year the chub, it is true, is 

 silvery, but more especially when young. The spots and bands 

 referred to are to some extent evanescent, diffuse or variable, and 

 sometimes appear more intense than at others, though never much 

 more than obsolete tints at best. Mr. Vanderveer says that the 

 chub often feeds on the little bits of vegetation which sometimes 

 float to the surface, after a school of suckers have been browsing 

 about and dragging the plants from the bottom. At such times it 

 would be comparatively easy to locate them by the disturbance at the 

 surface of the water, when they were readily captured. 



Occasionally taken in the tidewater of Raccoon Creek, near Bridge- 

 port, Gloucester county, during warm weather. They are said to reach 

 but a moderate size and are not especially valued. 



Mr. Vanderveer says that in the Delaware near Trenton in winter 

 and spring, sometimes browsing suckers will disturb the channel 

 grass by pushing about among it and thus little decayed ends will 

 float to the surface. These ends will then form a tempting lure to the 

 chub, and the little disturbance at the water's surface indicating to 

 the fishermen the condition below so that a profitable haul may be 

 made. Sometimes both chubs and suckers were taken in this way. 

 The tail of the chub produces but a little wake as he swims near the 

 surface. Chubs are cannibals, eating their own kind, fish-spawn, and 

 insects. The latter they always take with a break at the surface. 

 They grow rapidly in warm weather, or till the water cools. In 

 winter they lurk about deep holes with hard bottoms. They readily 

 take dough-bait. In size they reach a weight of about two and one- 

 half to three pounds and a maximum length of about twenty inches. 



Abramis crysoleucas (Mitchill). 

 Roach. 



Young very abundant in large schools associated with Notropis 

 chalybceus in Still Run, near Porchtown, this one of the head-waters 

 of the Maurice River in Gloucester county. They were not so darkly- 



