932 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



THE BIG GROUPERS 



SMALLER specimens of the Spotted Grou- 

 per or Jewfish {Promicrops guttatiis) have 

 lived remarkably well at the Aquarium, so 

 it appeared probable that adults would do 

 equally well. Consequently about a year ago 

 a two-hundred-and-fifty-pound specimen was 

 brought from Key West, Florida, as a gift from 

 Mr. Danforth B. Ferguson. 



Up to that time this was the largest bony 

 fish ever exhibited at the Aquarium, and the 

 largest fish of any kind with the exception of an 

 occasional large shark. On account of its size 

 this specimen could not be accommodated in a 

 wall tank with the other groupers, but was 

 placed in the large center pool with the stur- 

 geons, drumfishes and sand sharks. 



On April 13, 1912, six more large groupers, 

 most of them considerably larger than the first, 

 were brought from the same locality and placed 

 in the same pool. One of these died on Sep- 

 tember 8th, and though by no means the largest 

 of the lot, it measured six feet three inches in 

 length, and weighed, in a very emaciated con- 

 dition, two hundred and thirty pounds. 



Though accustomed in their natural habitat 

 to very pure sea-water of a high salinity, they 

 have adapted themselves well to the harbor wa- 

 ter supplied to the center pool, which has only 

 half the salinity of pure sea-water and which 

 is filthy beyond comparison with that of the 

 Florida Keys. 



It is thus demonstrated beyond question that 

 these giants among the finny tribes are hardy 

 and adaptable in confinement, and we predict 

 that they will become popular as aquarium ex- 

 hibits in other institutions than our own. 



OUR BLACK-SPOTTED TROUT 



THE trouts of western North America pre- 

 sent an exceedingly difficult problem for 

 the systematist, and authorities on the 

 group are by no means agreed as to the status 

 of many of the forms which have been variously 

 regarded as species, varieties or merely local 

 phases. 



The cut-throat or black-spotted trout, like 

 most of its relatives, is extremely variable, and 

 as its range is very great, extending from 

 Alaska to California and from the head-waters 

 of the Yellowstone to the Pacific, some widely 

 different conditions or habitat are presented. It 

 may be that some of these differences are due 

 to direct effects of the environment, but prob- 

 ably the modern students of heredity would re- 



gard the species as one possessed of a great 

 complex of characters, which, under geographi- 

 cal isolation, have become segregated or sorted 

 out in various ways to produce the variations in 

 color, etc., which are observed. 



The trout of Yellowstone Lake and neigh- 

 boring waters was originally described as a 

 separate species, Salmo lewisi, in honor of Cap- 

 tain Meriwether Lewis, the leader of the Lewis 

 and Clark expedition. Later it was considered 

 a variety of Salmo clarki, the cut-throat or 

 black-spotted trout. All the tendency of recent 

 years has been to merge it completely with 

 clarki, and drop the varietal name. 



The manner in which the species has become 

 distributed in the head-waters of the Yellow- 

 stone from the Snake River by way of Two- 

 Ocean Pass, has been interestingly described by 

 Dr. B. W. Evermann. It appears that the cut- 

 throat trout is the only species of fish inhabiting 

 the waters of Yellowstone Lake. Certain other 

 species have been introduced, but according to 

 .Messrs. Thompson and Leach, of the United 

 States Bureau of Fisheries Stations at the lake, 

 none of those introduced are ever taken, so it is 

 presumed that they have failed to adajjt them- 

 selves to these waters. 



Every summer the Aquarium receives eggs of 

 the cut-throat trout through the kindness of the 

 United States Bureau of Fisheries, and the past 

 season the writer had the privilege of seeing the 

 work of taking the eggs at the lake stations. 

 The Yellowstone trout, like most lake-dwelling 

 trout, run into the shallow waters to breed, 

 and where possible ascend the small streams 

 which empty into the lake. Often the way is 

 barred by shallows in the streamlets, but, un- 

 dismayed by difficulties that ordinarily they 

 would not attempt, the fishes, prompted by the 

 breeding instinct, attempt to pass over ripples 

 so shallow that swimming is impossible, and 

 progress must be made, if at all, by a series of 

 flops and struggles over the uneven gravel and 

 stones of the stream bed. The writer observed 

 one such shallow, where, in perhaps the space 

 of a square yard, about a dozen trout were at- 

 tempting to pass by this method from one pool 

 to the next higher. The water was so shallow 

 that the fishes were more than half exposed to 

 the air, and were compelled to lie on one side 

 between struggles. Occasionally a fish would 

 flop out upon the dry gravel. However, the 

 large number of fishes in the pool above proved 

 that many, if not all, that made the attempt had 

 been successful. In some pools the fish were 

 so numerous as to render the bottom scarcely 

 visible, and to capture them to obtain eggs 

 meant only dipping them out with a hand-net. 



