46 Conservation Department 



spawn on shallow bars off the stream mouths. This fish is a bottom 

 feeder like the bullhead and when taken from our cool lake waters 

 furnishes a palatable food. 



The carp is a fish of the weedy shallows although it wanders 

 widely along the lake shore in depths of from 3 to 15 feet in 

 search of crayfish and other food. Early in the summer it invades 

 the flooded lands to spawn, usually at a date later than the pike 

 and pickerel, but is more or less a competitor of these, as well as 

 the perch, bullhead and large-mouthed bass in these situations. 



The golden shiner is a fish of the weedy shallows and rather 

 warm water, and consequently is scarce except in sheltered bays 

 and around the head or the foot of the lakes where they are more 

 or less abundant. 



The bullhead is also a fish of the shallows, among the weed beds 

 and on the muddy bottom at moderate depth, but in the summer 

 frequently wanders widely in the open lake on calm evenings, 

 feeding near the surface on the emerging mayflies. 



Pickerel and pike are distinctly fish of the weedy shallows and 

 consequently are scarce in most of the Finger lakes except in such 

 situations as the foot of Cayuga and the shallows of Otisco. 



The eel is becoming scarcer in all the Finger lakes and as far as 

 we could ascertain has been absent from Keuka for the last twenty- 

 five years. It is very scarce, if not entirely absent, from Canan- 

 daigua, although it was fairly common twenty years ago. We 

 obtained two eel "smears" (where eels had squirmed through our 

 nets) in Owasco but got no evidence of the fish in Skaneateles. 

 Dams and other obstructions in the outlets of all these lakes are 

 the principal cause of the eels' disappearance. Of course it must 

 make its way up from the sea to reach the lake, and as the fish 

 mature they pass downstream. Their young can never return 

 because of insuperable barriers. The history of the eel in Keuka 

 lake is a fine demonstration that eels do not breed in fresh water 

 and must return to the sea for this purpose. After the old Seneca 

 and Keuka canal was abandoned, the fall of 250 feet between the 

 lakes and the 7 or 8 dams across the stream some of which are 28 

 feet in height, could not be surmounted by the elvers and the last 

 one which reached maturity, a large specimen, was captured 25 

 or 30 years ago. The race is now extinct in those waters. 



The yellow perch is the most generally distributed food fish in 

 the Finger lakes. It is found most plentifully around the weedy 

 shallows 5 to 25 feet in depth, wandering widely along the shore 

 in search of food. During the latter part of June we took great 

 numbers of perch in Seneca lake both in gill nets and traps in 

 depths ranging from 10 to 55 feet, but in general the fish is dis- 

 tributed in depths from three to twenty feet. It is by no means 

 confined to the weedy bottom but prefers those situations for 

 spawning purposes. 



The pike-perch, or wall-eye, is now a common fish in Canandaigna 

 and Owasco lakes. Although millions of fry have been put in 

 Seneca and Cavuga during the last ten years we took no wall-eyes 



