GREAT LAKES COREGONIDS 



555 



SEASONAL MOVEMENTS 



As on the other lakes, pilot are not caught often for the market, and knowledge of 

 their habits is derived principally from the experience of those fishermen who take 

 the fish for home consumption. Out of Grand Marais, Marquette, on Stannard Rock 

 reef, and Ontonagon in Michigan, Grand Marais, Minn., and Gargantua and Michipi- 

 coten Island, Ontario, the fish may be taken in numbers from about November 1 to 

 freezing. At the two latter localities it is reported that they enter the small creeks 

 as early as October and again in early spring. At Grand Marais, Mich., a few are 

 taken under the ice by means of spears. They are known to remain in some abun- 

 dance on the beaches at this point until July. On Iroquois Shoal above theSault, Will 

 Muntinga found a few in 15 feet on June 12, 1922. I found them common on July 

 12, 1922, in a 2%-inch gill net set from the shore of the South Twin Island, Wis., 

 at a depth of 24 feet. A few were seined off Grand Marais, Minn., also, on July 17 

 and 18, 1922, and stray specimens were collected from pound nets in Black Bay on 

 July 20, 1922, and out of Rossport on August 10, 1922. As pilot do not enter a 

 pound readily, the taking of only stragglers is no indication of abundance. A few 

 were taken in a 2%-inch gill net set at Rossport, Ontario, on October 1, 1921, in 24 

 feet. Numbers were seen around Les Petits Ecrits on October 4, 1921, and off 

 Porphyry Island on September 19, 1923. At these points they could be taken abun- 

 dantly with a hand fine. 



It appears, then, that the pilot at no time moves far from the beaches. It is 

 likely that the shallow water on the shores of Lake Superior does not often become 

 too warm for the fish. 



BREEDING HABITS 



Little is known of the breeding habits of the species. Will Parker informs me 

 that when he fishes herring from November 10 to December 1 on the grounds between 

 Partridge Island and Toneys Point and Sachs Head he gets pilot on the gravel bottom 

 and herring on the sand. Earl Couture says the fish spawn out of Ontonagon from 

 the last of November into December on gravel near shore. Out of Grand Marais, 

 Minn., the fish spawn during December, according to James Scott, at the mouth of 

 Cascade River and at the mouth of the Devils Track River. The bottom selected 

 is bowlders and gravel along the shore. It is not known that the fish spawn when 

 they run into the creeks around Gargantua and on Michipicoten Island in the fall, 

 but no doubt they do. 



Prosopium quadrilaterale of Lake Nipigon 



Two specimens collected off the mouth of Blackwater River on July 29, 1922, 

 in 10 to 20 feet of water on gravel bottom are not different in their characters from 

 specimens from the Great Lakes. The individuals taken measure 191 and 318 milli- 

 meters. Both are females, the smaller one immature. Gill rakers, 7 + 10 and 9 + 10; 

 lateral-line scales, 89 and 95; L/H, 4.7 and 5; H/E, 4.2 and 4.4; Pv/P, 1.8 and 1.9; 

 Av/V, 2 and 2.2. 



Little is known of the distribution or habits of the pilot in the lake. The fisher- 

 men never get them in their whitefish nets, it appears, and no nets of smaller mesh 



