r218 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



5 Anguilla chrysypa Kaf. 



Common eel 

 These occur up in the inlets and at the head of the harbors. 

 A number of young eels 8 to 10 centimeters in length were taken. 

 The stomach of an eel 12 centimeters long was gorged with 

 Fundulus eggs. The eels are great destroyers of fish eggs and 

 besides feed on young and adult Fundulus and Menidia. During 

 some seasons great numbers of eels die; so many that from the 

 inlets arises a stench of their decaying bodies. The cause is 

 unknown though it is probably due to some parasite or fungus. 

 No indication of reproductive organs was apparent even in the 



adults. 



6 Eupomotis gibbosus L. 



Com/mon sun-fish 



Taken from the fresh-water ponds. On the sandy and gravelly 

 bottom along the shore of the second pond in a sunny spot where 

 the water was about 2 feet deep were fully 20 sunfish nests. 

 These were from 18 to 30 inches across and rudely circular in 

 form. The sand had been removed and piled up in a circle ex- 

 posing the pebbles of the bottom. The fish did not bring the 

 stones into the nest for they were either too large or too firmly 

 embedded. In these warm sunny spots the sunfish laid their 

 eggs on the lower edges of stones or sticks and then kept guard 

 over them. Each guard remained over the nest and was appar- 

 ently fearless of any intruders, even a bass four times as large as 

 the sunfish being driven off. The eggs were few in number and 

 fastened to the stones and sticks by a sticky threadlike sub- 

 stance. 



The nests were guarded up to the last of August when the 

 young were hatched. 



7 Pseudopleuronectes americanus Wal. 



Winter flounder 



The young of these are seined in the channels and outside the 



sandy bar at Cold Spring Harbor where the bottom is gravelly 



and sometimes where there is eelgrass. Adults are taken in the 



