490 



BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 



grounds, he says, are on the Michigan shore. The Oconto shoals are much frequented 

 on the Wisconsin side. In Grand Traverse Bay and at Port Washington, Wis., the 

 fishermen quoted previously inform me that spawning usually is not at its height 

 until November 20. The fish spawn at these places on sand along shore at depths 

 of 10 to 25 feet and remain on the spawning grounds into December. Farther south 

 the spawning season apparently is later, as F. C. Kimball, of Michigan City, says 

 that herring taken in early December have not yet begun to spawn. 



VALUE AS FOOD 



The Michigan herring are in no way superior as food to those from Huron or 

 Superior, except possibly those from the deep water of Green Bay, but good markets 

 are nearer, and therefore smaller quantities can be marketed with profit. Most of 

 the herring taken on the western and southern shores are sold fresh; but elsewhere, 

 especially to the northward, where transportation facilities are not so good, many 

 are salted. 



ABUNDANCE 



There are no data on the present abundance of the species, except such as exist 

 in the minds of the fishermen. In two places, Beaver Island and Gros Cap, the 

 fishermen say the herring are now commercially extinct, and they are said to be 

 much less abundant at Grand Haven than formerly. No protection has been 

 afforded the species in the way of closed seasons, and the size of mesh allowed for 

 their capture in all States is near the minimum that would take a marketable fish, 

 and it would not be surprising if the species had been seriously reduced in numbers 

 everywhere. It appears, however, that in Lake Michigan, as in the other lakes, 

 those areas in which they were most abundant originally still know them in quanti- 

 ties that foreshadow no immediate extermination. 



Leucichthys artedi artedi and artedi manitoulinus of Lake Huron 



Five species of herring have been reported from Lake Huron by Jordan and 

 Evermann (1911) — harengus, cisco huronius, manitoulinus, eriensis, and artedi. The 

 first two are very unsatisfactorily differentiated from one another by their authors. 

 They have been separated by very few characters, and these I do not hold to be 

 valid. (See p. 492.) The two names, then, may be taken jointly to represent the 

 common herring of Lake Huron. Manitoulinus is a well-differentiated form, but is 

 known to intergrade with the common herring and is here regarded only as a local 

 race. The status of albus as the common form of Erie and of eriensis and their 

 relation to cisco huronius are discussed on page 480, where reasons are given for treat- 

 ing all the forms of the shore herring of the Great Lakes as races under the specific 

 caption of artedi. 



The common herring of Lake Huron resembles very closely the rare blue-backed 

 slender variety of Erie. There is present in the North Channel a form (Leucichthys 

 manitoulinus of Jordan and Evermann; fig. 26) that approaches in shape the common 

 Erie type, but in its extreme development it is nearer in its characters to the deep- 

 water nigripinnis of Lake Huron than to any herring in the Great Lakes. The common 

 forms of the herring of Lakes Erie, Michigan, and Huron are compared in their 



