26 . FISHES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

The common sucker, also known as the pale sucker, white sucker, grey 
sucker and brook sucker, styled by the Canadian French the Carpe 
blanche, is the commonest member of its genus in waters east of the 
Rocky mountains. It is found from Canada to Florida and westward 
to Montana. Covering such a wide range of territory the species is 
naturally variable and has been described over and over again by many 
authorities under a great variety of names. The male of this sucker in 
spring has a faint rosy stripe along the middle of the side. The young 
are brownish in color and somewhat mottled and have a dark median 
band or a series of large blotches. The adults are light olive varying 
to paler and sometimes darker; sides silvery. The species reaches a 
length of twenty-two inches, and a weight of five pounds. It is a very 
common inhabitant of ponds and streams of the lowlands, and a small 
race occurs in certain cold mountain streams of the Adirondack region, 
where it is dwarfed in size and changed in color, but does not differ in 
essential characters. Dr. Rothrock, also, obtained a mountain race of 
this sucker in T'win Lakes, Colorado, at an elevation of 9,500 feet above 
the sea level. 
The common sucker is a very indifferent food fish in the estimation of 
most people, but when taken from cold waters and in its best condition 
its flesh is very palatable. It takes the hook readily when baited with 
common earth worms. 
Dr. Richardson says: “It is a common fish in all parts of the fur coun- 
tries, abounding in the rivers and even in landlocked marshes and ponds, 
but preferring shallow grassy lakes with mud bottoms. In the begin- 
ning of summer it may be seen in numbers forcing its way up rocky 
streams, and even breasting strong rapids, to arrive at its proper spawn- 
ing places in stony rivulets; soon afterwards it returns to the lakes. 
Its food, judging from the contents of the stomachs of those which I 
opened, is chiefly soft insects; but in one I found the fragments of a 
fresh-water shell. Ih the winter and autumn it is common in nets, and 
in the spawning season (June) may be readily speared, or even taken by 
the hand, in shallow streams. Itis a very soft watery fish, but devoid of 
any unpleasant flavor, and is considered to be one of the best in the 
country for making soup. Like its congeners it is ‘singularly tenacious 
of life, and may be frozen and thawed again without being killed.” 
33. Catostomus nigricans Ler Sveuvr. 
The Stone Toter. (Figure 31.) 
The stone toter has a peculiar physiognomy ; the head is flattened on top, the in- 
terorbital space concave and the frontal bone short, broad and thick. The body is 
sub-terete, its depth being contained four:and one-third times in the length with- 
out caudal or equal to length of head. The eye is rather small, being contained 
three times in length of snout. Mouth large, lips well developed and strongly papil- 
lose. 
