SPAWNING ACT OF THE WHITE-FISH. 523 



over, nature having provided an adhesive substance which fastens it to the sand or gravel. It 

 remains about one hundred days, when the young fish emerge into life. While they were exposed 

 for so long a time, we cannot fail to admire the beautiful and mysterious laws of nature manifested 

 in their protection from the severity of the weather, from predaceous wild fowl, from voracious 

 fish, and from reptiles, which during the winter are in a semi-dormant state. As soon as the young 

 flsh are strong enough to move off they gradually work out into the deep, where they remain three 

 or four years, when they attain their full or average size, and move round periodically with the 

 parent fish to their various feeding and spawning grounds. 



"White-fish are very prolific, and would multiply very rapidly if not destroyed by a reckless 

 mode of fishing. Many valuable fishing grounds have been rendered useless by hauling seines 

 during the breeding season, since, in such case, the parent fish are not only destroyed, but the 

 spawn is disturbed by the seines dragging along the bottom so that it will not hatch. Another 

 destructive mode of fishing is to set gill-nets across the mouths of bays or inlets, where the fish, 

 in accordance with their habit, enter in periodically ; these nets turn their course some other way, 

 and it will be clearly understood that they are so social in their nature that in whatever direction 

 the main body of them incline the others are sure to follow. Our fishery laws have done much, 

 already, toward the prevention of such abuses." 



Mr. John W. Kerr, overseer of the Hamilton district, Ontario, Canada, wrote the following 

 paragraph in a letter to Professor Baird, on the spawning of the White-fish in Lakes Erie and 

 Ontario : 



"The White-fish spawn, both in Lakes Erie and Ontario, on the reefs and rocks, during the 

 month of November. The eggs dropping into the crevices of the rocks are protected from suckers, 

 a flsh always on the alert at this season of the year to devour the eggs. The two specimens sent 

 herewith you will please find by examination differ from each other in many respects. This you 

 will be able to find out to be the case only by close study and observation. The Lake Ontario flsh 

 you will find to be a finer and superior flsh than the Lake Erie White-fish, both in delicious deli- 

 cacy of flavor and taste, and the whiteness and richness of the flesh. Still, as regards the food for 

 this flsh, in both lakes, I have in every instance and on all occasions fonnd it the same. The fish 

 live by suction. 



" There is an observable difference in the shape of the White-fish of Lake Ontario as compared 

 with the shape of the White-fish of Lake Erie. Thus you will please find that the Lake Ontario 

 White-flsh are rounder and broader on the back, while the Lake Brie White-fish are flatter and 

 sharper on the back." 



Artificial propagation. — At so early a date as November, 1857, according to Mr. 

 Milner, the first attempt placed on record was made by Mr. Carl Muller, of New York, and Mr. 

 Henry Brown, of New Haven, to propagate the White-fish artificially. The lake which it was 

 proposed should be first stocked was Lake Saltonstall, near the city of New Haven. Eggs were 

 procured and impregnated artificially. The knowledge of the art was, however, crude, pisciculture 

 being in its infancy, and the experiment was but partially successful. The eggs were packed in 

 moist sand and placed in the bed of the stream on their arrival, the White-flsh eggs on a sandy 

 shoal of less than three feet in depth. The presence of young fish in great numbers in the following 

 March and April was believed to result from the eggs, although the exceedingly common error on 

 the Great Lakes of mistaking the schools of small cyprinoids for young White-fish (which they very 

 much resemble except in the absence of the adipose dorsal), may have been repeated here. In the 

 fall of 1858 the experiment was renewed. There has been no reference made to any permanent 

 results from this experiment in the reports of the State commissioners. 



