104 NATURAL HISTORY OF AMIA CALVA LINN^US. 



III. DISCUSSION. 



i. The Literature — The literature on the breeding habits of Amia is to be found 

 in Hallock's Sportsman's Gazetteer ('77), where the author quotes the account of 

 Dr. Estes * (this has been copied by Dr. Goode in his Natural History of Useful 

 Aquatic Animals) and in the papers of Fiilleborn ('94), Dean ('96, '96 a , '98), and 

 Whitman and Eycleshymer ('97). The whole of it covers but forty-seven pages, 

 and yet it would be difficult to find anywhere within the same space so many con- 

 tradictory statements. That the writers quoted have worked at the natural history 

 of Amia, not continuously, but incidentally while gathering embryological material? 

 seems to be explanation in part of the many discrepancies. If the observations 

 recorded in this paper be correct, each of these writers has been both right and 

 wrong. In the preceding pages only the more important discrepancies have been 

 pointed out, while the easy task of making a more critical examination of the 

 literature has been left to the reader who is curious in such matters. And yet 

 it should not be too hastily assumed that in all respects the habits of Amia are the 

 same in all localities. That the colors of the adult fish may vary somewhat with 

 the locality is probable from the statement of Professor Kofoid quoted above. 

 That the eggs are of a much darker color in the Wisconsin lakes than in this 

 locality is clear from the figure given by Whitman and Eycleshymer, and it 

 can scarcely be doubted that the nests are correspondingly less conspicuous. The 

 frequency of the nests also varies with local conditions. That the time elapsing 

 between the building of the nest and the spawning may be much shortened where 

 the fish are very abundant and in seasons in which warm weather comes on sud- 

 denly is also probable. It would not be surprising to find in such cases that the 

 nest may be spawned in immediately upon completion, or that at times the fish 

 may spawn on some nest-like bottom area without previous preparation of the area 

 and that such alterations in this area as appear after the spawning may then be 

 merely the result of the movements of the fish at the time of spawning. This 

 seems the more probable when we remember that the fish may spawn in a wooden 

 crate or in an enclosure of the natural bottom which shows no resemblance to a nest 

 either before or after the spawning act. 



The time occupied in depositing the eggs varies considerably and may be 

 shorter than any period that has been observed, while the time required for them 



*Mr. Hallock kindly writes me that his information was obtained from Dr. Estes "directly" and was first 

 published in the Sportsman's Gazetteer. 



