Biological Survey — Oswego Watershed 181 



Economics of Lampreys 



Economically the lampreys have two sides, good and bad. On 

 the good or credit side, they supply food for human consumption 

 and also for fishes ; and they form excellent bait* for fishing. In 

 England especially, according to Couch and Seeley, as many as 

 45,000 have been used in a single year in the cod and turbot and 

 other deep sea fisheries. Also they were much sought after for 

 human food as shown by the literature of England and the Conti- 

 nent. In our own country, in New England, the large sea lampreys 

 were much used as food in the early days, and still are used, but 

 to a less extent. On the bad or debit side, the lampreys destroy 

 and injure many food fishes during their parasitic or predatory 

 life. 



Economics of Larval Lampreys. — The larvae, mud-or-sand- 

 lampreys, ammocoetes, of all kinds have only the credit side to 

 their account as they eat microscopic animals and plants abundant 

 in the mud-banks where they grow up, and therefore never injure 

 human food supplies. They, on the other hand, furnish excellent 

 fish food when by chance of freshets or other means they are 

 turned free in the water. This is probably one strong reason why 

 they are so restless when free in the water, and why they seek so 

 eagerly the protection of the covering of sand and mud. From 

 their excellence as fish food, and their tenacity on life, they make 

 good fish bait and are much sought after for that purpose. 

 Formerly, and still to a less degree, there is and was quite a trade 

 in larval lampreys for the fishermen. From Owego, Bingham- 

 ton and Ithaca, the mud-lampreys were sent in milk cans in 

 all directions. Still in the branches of the Delaware the larvae 

 are much sought as fish bait to be used in the streams of the 

 Catskill mountains and in New England they are supplied by the 

 bait dealers. In a word, the larvae or immature lampreys in the 

 mud-banks, are not at all harmful, and wholly beneficial. 



Economics of the Brook Lamprey. — As was proved by exact 

 experiments in 1897-98, and subsequent years, the brook lamprey 

 never takes food in its adult life, and therefore never harms in any 

 way, human food supplies. Its larvae or mud-eels, eat only 

 microscopic organisms, and besides are excellent bait for fisher- 

 men. The brook lamprey then is never harmful, and may be 

 made beneficial if its young are used for bait. 



""' The larvae or young living in the mud and gravel where there is slack 

 water along the streams where the eggs are laid may be secured by means 

 of a scoop- shovel or more abundantly with a hand-dredge. A scoop partly 

 full of the mud where they are supposed to be is taken out on the shore and 

 spread out on the ground. The larger ones will squirm out as the water drains 

 away, and the smaller ones can be seen when the mud and gravel is spread 

 out rather thin. They look something like angle worms. From successive 

 freshets, they are carried downstream so that for the larger larvae one 

 searches farther downstream, and also in somewhat deeper water. 



