182 
BULLETIN OF THE BUREAU OF FISHERIES 
No evidence was found of special abundance of catfishes at Keokuk before or 
during the early part of the breeding season, such as would be expected if they engaged 
in extensive northward migrations for purposes of spawning. It is probable that 
they tend to move upstream during warm weather in compensation for downstream 
drifting in cold weather. 
The great increase in the yield of catfish from the lake apparently applies chiefly 
to the channel cat and the niggerlip. Reports regarding the flathead in the lake are 
not consistent. At any rate, the fishery for catfishes in Lake Keokuk showed 
marked and consistent development up to 1922, at least. Oral reports in 1926 
indicate a continued upward trend for catfish in the lake, but this was not evident 
from the statistical report for 1927. 
THE SUCKERS (Catostomidge) 
One of the most striking characteristics of the fish fauna of the whole Mississippi 
Valley, as Forbes and Richardson (1908) remark, is the prominence of the sucker 
family; and these fishes offer us one of the most difficult of problems, for the very 
reasons of their abundance and importance and their variety of kinds, together 
with the lack of distinctions between species in all statistical reports. In such 
statements the sucker fishes are lumped under two categories — “suckers” (covering 
probably a half dozen genera) and “buffalo fishes” (covering 3 species of one genus). 
Excluding buffalo fishes of the genus Ictiobus, we might find in the vicinity of Keo- 
kuk the blue sucker (Cycleptus, 1 species), the carp suckers (Carpiodes, 4 species), 
the chub sucker (Erimyzon, 1 species), the spotted sucker (Minytrema, 1 species), 
the fine-scaled suckers (Catostomus, 3 species), the redhorse (Moxostoma, 3 species), 
the pavement-toothed redhorse (Placopharynx, 1 species), and the rabbit-mouth 
sucker (Lagochila, 1 species). Some would be rare, if present; but of these 15 species 
possibly 4 or more may be of significance, and 10 were actually observed near Keokuk. 
Blue sucker. Cycleptus elongatus (Le Sueur) 
BLUEFISHJ MISSOURI SUCKER 
The blue sucker, the only species of its genus, is distinctive in appearance and 
habits, estimable for its qualities as a food fish, and in the past, at least, abundant 
enough to be caught in quantity at certain seasons. Its characteristic appearance, 
with strikingly reduced head, is well shown in the accompanying illustration. In 
distribution it seems to be largely restricted to two or three of the greater streams 
of the Mississippi Basin, in which it has been taken most abundantly in regions of 
swift water. It is generally rated, where known, as the best of the suckers. As 
to its past abundance, we have, on the one hand, the statement of Forbes and Rich- 
ardson (1908, p. 66) that it “is not common in the Mississippi above the latitude of 
Quincy,” and the remark of Meek (1890, p. 72) that it was not common in Iowa; 
we have, on the other hand, the oral reports of fisherman at many points on the 
Mississippi, as far north as Wisconsin, that until 10 or 15 years ago there were 
important spring runs and lesser fall runs of blue suckers. There is no occasion for 
surprise at the conflict of reports if it is borne in mind that it was the habit of the 
blue sucker to assemble in considerable numbers only for brief seasons and in the 
swiftest waters of the river, where, in the absence of effective protective legislation, 
it was comparatively easy to take them; while in other seasons they had retired 
to places unknown, probably the deeper parts of the river, from which they were 
taken only occasionally. The fish could, therefore, be known to commercial fisher- 
