206 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONERS OF 



Such injuries are not rare in true fishes in regions where this bird abounds. The 

 wound made in fishes by the kingfisher {Ceryle alcyoti) is similar to that made by the 

 heron, though smaller. 



3. Reptiles. We have here to chronicle the almost incredible story of snakes 

 eating adult spawning Lake Lampreys. On June 3, 1898, in company with Mr. A. B. 

 Spicer and another assistant, we saw in the water a serpent of unusual diameter. 

 Upon landing it with a dip net we found it to be a large water snake (Tropidonotus 

 sipedon), and dissection proved it to contain a large adult female Lake Lamprey full of 

 eggs. It had been swallowed head first, and most of the cephalic portion was already 

 digested. Upon two or three occasions we have known snakes of the species named 

 above to have fed upon lampreys, and we have proven their depredations upon fishes 

 of different species to be very common. In the summer of 1898 we found a water 

 snake several feet from the water of Cayuga Lake with a wriggling bull-head or 

 horned pout (Ameitirus nebulosus) in its mouth. In the spring of 1900 we took from 

 the stomach of another a fair-sized brook trout. 



[Since the manuscript for this article was prepared Professor Fuertes has killed a 

 water snake at the shore of Cayuga Lake which disgorged an entire lake lamprey. 

 This was in August, and shows that mature lampreys suffer from enemies at other 

 times than when on spawning beds.] 



4. Amphibians or Batrachians. The most nearly direct evidence that we have of 

 this class of vertebrates destroying lampreys in natural conditions, is that a water 

 dog (Necturus tnaculatus) was seen to eat a Brook Lamprey in an aquarium, but the 

 artificial conditions surrounding such an occurrence do not fully justify the inference 

 that such an episode would be likely to occur in unmodified natural surroundings. 



5. Fishes. Here is published, for the first time, as far as we can learn, the fact 

 that fishes destroy lampreys in great numbers. It is indeed a case where " turn about 

 is fair play," as the lampreys destroy many fishes and the latter have at least some 

 influence in keeping down the numbers of the former. This is chiefly through the 

 agency of minnows in eating the fertilized eggs of lampreys whenever they can find it 

 possible. We have seen scores of schools of minnows (chiefly species of RhinichtJiys 

 and Notropis) lying in wait just below the beds of spawning lampreys, and when the 

 eggs are exuded these minnows dart forward and eat as many of them as possible 

 before the lampreys shall have had time to stir up the sand sufficiently to cover all 

 their spawn. Upon dissecting some of the minnows we have found their stomachs 

 filled with the lampreys' eggs. When lampreys of either species have been removed 

 from their spawning beds, we have often seen many minnows soon busily engaged in 

 the effort to pick up every egg that the current may have uncovered; and we have 

 often determined real fresh spawning beds — the adults perhaps having been removed 



