516 NATURAL HISTORY OP AQUATIC ANIMALS. 



their proper food was of this character. In jar No. 5 a variety of food was provided, dry fresh 

 beef, milk, boiled potato, and bread. The crumbs of bread and the scrapings from the beef 

 were all that the fish were seen to take into their mouths. They died, one after another, very 

 rapidly, and in a few days all were dead. 



" There were other things unfavorable to them, in these experiments, besides the lack of their 

 natural nourishment. To conduct these experiments favorably, they should be placed in a large 

 \'essel, and a stream of fresh water should be supplied constantly so that the water should 

 continue pure and the production of confervse be avoided. This difficulty of procuring a suita- 

 ble food for the young White-fish has been the experience of the few fish-culturists who have 

 hatched them. 



"A set of specimens, representing young fish from the Detroit River, from the troughs at 

 Clarkston, and from the jars, were preserved in alcohol and submitted to Mr. S. A. Briggs, editor 

 of the ' Lens,' Chicago. 



"A letter from Mr. Briggs contained the following : 



" Chicago, May 28, 1872. 

 " My Dear Sib : The four vials containing G. albus came duly to hand, and have, with the 

 alcohol and water in which the specimens were preserved, been carefully examined. 



"The intestines of specimens Nos. 77 and 78 from Clarkston were entirely destitute of organic 

 matter recognizable under a power of 400 linear, which ought to be ample for the purpose. Those 

 of specimens 76 and 79, from Detroit River, contained numerous specimens of two species of 

 Diatomacew, viz, Fragilaria capucina and Stephanodiscus Niagarm. Tlie former is a filamentous 

 form which grows very abundantly in our lake inlets attached to stems of lilies. The latter is a 

 large form which, from its peculiar build, contains considerable nutritious material. 

 " Very sincerely, yours, 



«S. A. BRIGGS." 



Two statements of a more general character are made regarding the food of the White-fish 

 in Lakes Erie and Ontario ; the one, an extract from a letter by Mr. John W. Kerr, Hamilton, 

 Ontario, the other by Mr. Peter Kiel, of Wolfe Bay: 



" The White-fish at this season of the year, fall and winter, feed on small shell-fish. This you 

 can ascertain yourself by analyzing the contents of their stomach. In spring and summer they 

 feed on a kind of shrimp-like insect; and from my knowledge and experience I have never known 

 them to change to any other kind of food than those two kinds now described to you by me." 



" The White-fish is of a fine organism, and, being entirely destitute of teeth, is neither preda- 

 ceous nor yet very voracious in its nature, but lives on the most simple fare, which consists princi- 

 pally of small worms and insects that abound in great numbers among the plants and porous 

 rocks on the bottom." 



Spawning and development. — The most elaborated discussion of (i) the habits of the White- 

 fish at the spawning season (noted day by day in the journal of the author), concluding with a 

 table showing the relative weight of ovaries and nutaber o^ eggs in proportion to the weight of the 

 fish, [ii) the development of eggs and embryo, and {in) the rate of the young White-fish's growth, 

 has been written by Mr. Milner in his "Report on the Fisheries of the Great Lakes," and is here 

 given in full : 



(i) The habits at spawning seasow.— "The White-fishes throughout the larger portion of the 

 Lakes, come into shallow water to deposit their spawn about the middle of November, just at 

 the time when the Salmon Trout has finished spawning and is returning to deep water. At this 



