490 NATURAL HISTORY OF AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



VIII. On the Canadian shore of Lake Ontario. 



"Their usual home at other seasons than the spawning period," remarks Milner, "is in 

 deep water. A few stragglers approach the shore and are taken in the pound-nets or with the 

 hook from the piers extending into the lakes. In the northern portions of Michigan they are taken 

 in fifteen fathoms in some numbers with the gill-nets, and more plentifully through holes cut in the 

 ice in the winter time, though a depth of over thirty fathoms is more favorable for their capture." 



Milner made the following remark: "Pound-nets have not made extensive inroads upon their 

 numbers, and none but mature fishes are taken." 



In Green Bay alone does it appear that small-meshed gill-nets have interfered with the 

 abundance of the fish by capturing their young. 



The best study of the habits of this species, as an inhabitant of the Great Lakes, was that 

 made by Milner, in 1871. He observed that in Lake Michigan, except in the spawning season, 

 they remain in the deepest parts of the lake. In their autumnal migrations they do not ascend 

 the rivers, and although they are known to exist in a few small inland lakes, connected with the 

 main lakes by rapids, there is no knowledge that they have ever been seen or taken in the outlets. 

 In the northern parts of Lake Michigan they are caught in depths of fifteen fathoms in small 

 numbers by the gill-nets, and more plentifully through the ice in winter, chiefly at a depth of more 

 than thirty fathoms. 



FOOD. They are ravenous feeders. In Lake Michigan, where a careful investigation into the 

 nature of their food was made, it was found that they were preying upon the cisco (Coregowis 

 Hoyi), a well-known fish closely resembling the white-fish. Mr. Milner was inclined to combat the 

 generally accepted theory of the fishermen that they are large consumers of young white fish, 

 stating that for a great part of the year they live in much deeper water than is resorted to by the 

 yonng white-fish, though Tront straying into shoal water, or migrating upon shallow spawning 

 grounds, would undoubtedly prey upon the smaller white-fish as readily as they would upon any 

 other species. 



It is not uncommon for a Trout to swallow a fish nearly as large as itself. One measuring 

 twenty-three inches was brought ashore at Two Rivers, Wisconsin, from the mouth of which some 

 three inches of the tail of a fish ( Lota maculosa) projected. The " lawyer," when taken from the 

 Trout, measured about seventeen inches. "Their exceeding voracity," writes Mr. Milner, "induces 

 them to fill their maws with singular articles of food. Where the steamers or vessels pass, the 

 refhse of the table is eagerly seized upon, and I have taken from the stomach a raw peeled potato 

 and a piece of sliced liver, and it is not unusual to find pieces of corn-cobs, in the green-corn 

 season." 



Kumlien'3 observations led him to believe that large Trout feed, to some extent, upon white- 

 fish, while the smaller ones cnp'nre the herring. In Green Bay the fishermen say that the Trout 

 leave the white-fish spawning beds in autumn before the spawning season begins, but that they 

 are not accused of being troublesome spawn-eaters, though otherwise extremely voracious, and 

 especially hurtful to tin- white-fish and herring. The fishermen of Port Huron informed him that 

 it was no unrsnal occurrence to obtain white-fish two or thr e pounds in weight from the stomachs 

 of large Trout. Captain Dingman, of Beaver Island, informed him that the Trout do not come 

 upon the white-fish reefs during the spawning season, and that they do -;ot trouble the white-fish at 

 that time. In that vicinity they are thought to prefer herring to any other kind of fish. A twenty- 

 pound Tront was caught off Beaver Islands which had in its stomach thirteen herrings and was 

 caught biting at the fourteenth. They are as omniverous as codfish, and among the articles which 



