American Fisheries Society. 203 
its value as a food fish, and whether in this respect it was being 
utilized to the fullest possible extent. 
I have elsewhere summed up the principal charges against 
the carp as follows: (1) that the carp thrashes about and stirs 
up the mud, so that the breeding-grounds of other fishes are 
spoiled; (2) that the carp roots up the vegetation, destroying 
the wild rice, ete., thus ruining good duck-shooting grounds ; 
(3) that the carp eats the spawn of other fishes ; (4) that the carp 
eats the young of other fishes; (5) that the carp 1s of no value 
as a food-fish; (6) that the carp is of no value as a game fish. 
To the first of the above charges should be added as a corollary 
that the stirring up of the mud of supply reservoirs often makes 
the water unfit for use. 
In studying the relation of carp to other fishes special atten- 
tion was paid to the small-mouthed black bass, which breeds 
abundantly in Lake St. Clair, and to the whitefish in Lake Erie. 
The former species builds its nests in numbers on the shoal, 
sandy bottoms at the St. Clair Flats, and as the carp is plentiful 
in the same localities, this seemed a favorable opportunity to 
make observations on the two species together. One breeding- 
ground in particular was watchd continuously. But although 
the carp frequented and fed among the rushes of the shallow 
water near shore, they were never seen on the actual area occu- 
pied by the bass, and it could not be learned that they inter- 
fered with the bass in any manner whatever. Examination was 
also made of intestinal contents-of carp taken in the same neizh- 
borhood, but in no case were the eggs of any kind of fish found 
among the material thus obtained. The principal food at this 
place was found to consist of certain aquatic plants, especially 
the stonewort (chara), and the larve of insects—imainly that of 
the May Fly, or “June Bug,” as it is often popularly called. 
At the western end of Lake Erie, where the whitefish come 
in the fall to spawn upon the reefs, especially in the neighbor- 
hood of Kelley's and the Bass Islands, there had been much 
complaint among the fishermen that the carp were also on the 
reefs in great numbers, and that at such times they destroyed 
large quantities of the whitensh spawn. In the fall of Igo1 at- 
tention was turned to this phase of the question, and from Port 
Clinton, as a base, trips were made with the fishermen to the 
