WHITE SUCKER 
149 
lateral band. The scale formula is 10-64 to 80-9. The length attains to 18, more 
rarely to 22, inches, and the weight to 5 pounds. Further details may well be left 
to succeeding pages. 
The Catostomidae are confined to North America and northeastern Asia. One 
species of this genus, C. rostratus, is found in Siberia. In America the species under 
consideration is the most common and extends from the Atlantic seaboard — that is, 
from Quebec — southward to Georgia and westward to Montana and Colorado, its 
southern limits including Missouri and its northern Lake Nipigon. It is excessively 
abundant throughout the middle of its range — viz, from Massachusetts to Kansas. 
A small race of this sucker has been found in certain cold streams of the Adirondacks, 
where it is dwarfed in size and more reddish in color but does not differ in essential 
characters. Doctor Rothrock has obtained a mountain race in the Twin Lakes of 
Colorado at an altitude of 9,500 feet (Bean, 1903). 
Besides this extensive geographical distribution, we find that this species exhibits 
a wide range in its tolerance of the varied conditions of life. The experiments of 
Wells (1918) would point to the opposite conclusion, as he found but three species in 
Illinois more susceptible to chemical changes in the water. It is to be noted, however, 
that the white sucker is difficult to keep in aquaria and is easily affected by sudden 
changes. Its shv nature makes it rebel against confinement and, as Reighard says 
(1920), “confined with other fish in an aquarium it is among the last to become accus- 
tomed to the observer and to take food.” A survey of its habits afield, however, 
shows that it has become adapted to practically every type of fish habitat. It 
associates with the brook and brown trout in our large springs; it may be found 
at any part of the varied course of the stream; and as the suckers dart up the rapids 
they may be mistaken for trout. In the warm pools of the meadow brook they are 
at home with the dace and shiners. They live in turbulent pools between the falls in 
the gorge, or hide in the very quiet ponds where goldfish are being reared. Over 
muddy bottoms, in the cat-tail marsh, or over rocky bottoms along the lake one meets 
with this same species. Forbes and Richardson (1908) concluded that it prefers 
bottoms of rock or sand, while in the lakes Reighard (1915) finds that it does not go 
below the thermocline in midsummer. Along the coast it will enter slightly brackish 
waters. I have failed ever to find white suckers in pools entirely isolated from any 
inflow, such as those left by the subsidence of a stream, though dace abound in such 
places. 
It is of importance to the pursuit of fish culture that we know as fully as possible 
the food habits of any such species that may slip into a sluice or pond and make its 
home with cultivated species of fish. 
BREEDING HABITS 
We shall trace the development of the sucker by first describing the activities 
attendant upon spawning and later speak of the eggs and fry that result from each 
spawning season. So thoroughly has Professor Reighard (1920) recorded their 
breeding behavior that little remains to be added here beyond a comparison of his 
observations in Michigan with some records made in the Ithaca region. * 
My study of the sucker during its spawning period was made at the upper 
end of Beebee Lake at Ithaca, a shallow artificial lake about 6 acres in area. 
