n"he Nesting Habits of Certain Sunfiskes 

 as Observed in a Park Lagoon in Chicago 



CARL L. HUBBS, Field Museum and Chicago Aquarium Society 



View of the Lagoon in Jackson Park, Chicago, were the 

 observations were made 



Just back of the present building of 

 the Field Museum of Natural History, in 

 Jackson Park, Chicago, there lies one 

 basin of a series of pretty lagoons, which 

 are connected with one another and with 

 Lake Michigan by means of narrow chan- 

 nels. These lagoons are well supplied 

 with fish life. The writer has records of 

 more than forty species, of which those 

 belonging to the sunfish family (Centrar- 

 chidae) are in many ways the most inter- 

 esting to him, as well as to the numerous 

 small boys who delight in dodging the 

 park police to catch these little fishes 

 from the shore. As this locality is so 

 readily accessible to the writer, he was 

 able during the spring of this year to 

 make daily observations here on the nest- 



ing habits of the sunfishes. Although 

 many, and perhaps all, of the facts de- 

 termined have already been recorded or 

 are generally well-known, nevertheless 

 these notes may be of interest to the 

 readers of Aquatic Life. 



The species which was first observed 

 nesting is one which is not popularly as- 

 sociated with the sunfishes, though be- 

 longing to the same family and having 

 similar habits, namely the large-mouthed 

 black bass (Micropterus salmoides). The 

 nests of this species, found only during 

 the latter half of May and the first half 

 of June, were all circles of exposed stony 

 or gravelly bottom, surrounded by the 

 finer bottom material — first a ring of 

 sand and then one of silt — thrown out- 



