NATIONAL FISHERY CONGRESS. 213 



Cayuga Lake with six lampreys on it. A local fisherman claims to have captured a 

 very large sturgeon which had 21 lampreys attached to it. 



In addition to the above list other valuable fish which have been attacked are 

 the whitefish, pike, inuskellunge, bass, perch, lake trout, wall eyed pike, redhorse or 

 mullets (Moxostoma macrolepidotum and M. aureolum), the eel (Anguilla chrysypa), 

 drum (Aplodinotus grunniens), white bass (Roccus chrysops), and others. In fact, of 

 the 74 species of fish found in Cayuga Lake basin, none is known to be free from 

 its attacks except those too small for its attachment and support. Several injured 

 specimens of the bowfin, mudfish or dogfish (Amia calva) have been seen; even the 

 heavy-scaled ganoid, the gar pike or billfish (Lepisosteus osseus), is sometimes attacked. 

 Fine specimens of lake trout (Cristivomer namaywsh) with as many as five wounds 

 on one fish have been found. With smaller fishes one attack sometimes proves fatal; 

 often, however, the fish may survive the first attack and fall a victim to the second 

 or even third. Only a fish of considerable size and vitality can survive five or more 

 wounds without intervals for recuperation. 



The records kept in field work here show that lampreys are much more injurious, 

 or a much greater percentage of fishes are injured in the early spring (February and 

 March) than at any other time. This season of feasting may be to strengthen them 

 for the long period of fasting and spawning, for it is shown that they not only refuse 

 to feed during the spawning season, but owing to the atrophy of the alimentary canal 

 they are entirely incapacitated for taking food. 



Professor Gage has estimated that the lamprey annually does as much in reduc- 

 ing the available food-fish in this lake as all the work of the fishermen combined. 

 He has also shown that of the bullheads captured in the lake 12 out of every 15 have 

 been attacked by the lamprey. From careful observations made within the past 

 year, the writer is prepared to confirm and emphasize both of the above statements. 



The attacks on the bullhead or catfish alone are of great importance. It is safe 

 to say that hundreds of barrels (probably about 500,000 pounds) of these are placed 

 annually upon the markets in the State of New York. In most cases they are dressed. 

 No wonder ! Who wants to buy or eat fish with great festering sores or ulcers visible? 

 And yet the bullheads are excellent food-fish. That their value is recognized by 

 experts is attested by the fact that last year the State Fish Commission of New York 

 furnished the State Fish Commission of Ohio with 1,200 of them for stocking certain 

 streams in the latter State. 



From every economical standpoint it would appear to be advantageous to rid the 

 world en rely of the lampreys, It would certainly be greatly to the advantage of the 

 fisheries of the State of New York if all were destroyed. Naturally, however, the 

 student .f biology must mourn the loss of a form so interesting and so instructive. 

 The qu< ;tions naturally arise: "How can the fish be protected from the lampreys; 

 and is ?., possible to remove the lampreys from our lakes? Thanks to the service 

 science has rendered by the twenty-five years' study of this subject by Dr. Wilder 

 and Professor Gage, the modus operandi becomes comparatively simple, as shown by 

 the following quotations from the latter's paper. 



It will be seen that it [the lamprey] has one very vulnerable point, viz, leaving the lake and 

 running up the tributaries to spawn. This seems to be the only point at which the lamprey can 

 be attacked, and the hope of exterminating it is rendered still stronger from the fact that in Cayuga 

 and Seneca lakes, so far as explored (during several seasons), the lampreys run up the inlet at the head 

 of the lake only, and do not spawn in the tributaries entering the lake at intervals on each side. 



